Lottery player wins big on MD ticket he nearly tossed cleaning car. ‘Ecstatic’
A hankering for snacks and a whim led a Pennsylvania man to a big Maryland lottery prize.
The Philadelphia man was driving home from work when he stopped by a Woodlawn convenience store to buy some snacks for the road on June 4, Maryland Lottery officials said in a June 16 news release.
“On a whim,” he bought some lottery tickets, including a Powerball ticket, lottery officials said.
The forgotten tickets sat in his car for more than a week, lottery officials said.
Then, as the man was cleaning his car, he came across a bag with the tickets and nearly tossed it, lottery officials said.
Turns out, it’s a good thing he didn’t.
Using the lottery app on his phone, the player checked his tickets and learned his Powerball ticket scored him $50,000.
“I was ecstatic when I realized I won,” he told lottery officials.
The player won by matching “four white balls and the Power Ball,” missing the jackpot by one number, according to lottery officials.
The winner has been playing lottery games for about four years and typically picks numbers “with personal significance like family birthdays,” according to lottery officials.
“I hope this is the first of many wins,” the engineer told lottery officials.
The man, who hasn’t told others of his win, told lottery officials he plans to spend his prize on some bills and save the remainder.
Woodlawn is about a 10-mile drive northwest from Baltimore.
What to know about Powerball
To score the jackpot in the Powerball, a player must match all five white balls and the red Powerball.
The odds of scoring the jackpot prize are 1 in 292,201,338.
Tickets can be bought on the day of the drawing, but sales times and price vary by state.
Drawings are broadcast Saturdays, Mondays and Wednesdays at 10:59 p.m. ET and can be streamed online.
Powerball is played in 45 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
This story was originally published June 16, 2025 at 12:08 PM with the headline "Lottery player wins big on MD ticket he nearly tossed cleaning car. ‘Ecstatic’."
