Lottery player takes off work to spend two days ‘guarding’ winning ticket in Maryland

When a Maryland mom realized how much her lottery ticket was worth, she took two days off work “guarding” it.

Now, she’s secured her top-prize win in Baltimore, the Maryland Lottery announced in a Feb. 23 news release.

The Garrett County woman and her husband were driving home from work when they stopped for gas, they told lottery officials. The wife went into the store and bought some lottery tickets.

One was a scratch-off ticket for a game called Power Cash, which had only debuted Feb. 19, according to Maryland lottery officials.

She scratched the ticket in the store and thought she had won $5,000. But when she went outside and scanned the ticket on her app, she realized it was 10 times more.

“I didn’t know about the multiplier,” the woman told lottery officials.

She became the first person to claim one of the game’s eight grand prizes of $50,000, according to the Maryland Lottery.

The winner said it was her first time winning an amount this big after previously picking up prizes of a few hundred dollars.

She made sure she kept the ticket safe until she and her husband could make the nearly 200-mile journey to Baltimore.

“I took off work for two days guarding the ticket,” the winner told lottery officials.

The couple has two young children, so they said they plan to use the winnings to make investments that could potentially help them purchase a home down the line.

They told lottery officials they’re also planning a celebration.

This story was originally published February 23, 2024 at 2:06 PM with the headline "Lottery player takes off work to spend two days ‘guarding’ winning ticket in Maryland."