A Prince George’s County man who claimed a $10,000 scratch-off prize on the $20 Diamond Spectacular game had to think back pretty far to fill Maryland Lottery officials in on the how and when of his encounter with Lady Luck.
His big score happened more than two months ago. “I had so much fun knowing that I had this winning ticket that I didn’t want to give it up,” the retired carpet supplier told Lottery officials. “I wanted to stretch out the excitement.”
His winning experience came at Giant #310 in Bowie. The 73-year-old explained that picking out a scratch-off is always his final task at the grocery store. He left the Giant, which is located at 15520 Annapolis Road, carrying his milk, bread and the $10,000 winning instant ticket.
“Diamond Spectacular always catches my eye when it’s among the selection,” he said. “There’s just something about it.” Scratching off his ticket later at home, the retiree soon knew what that “something” was.
“I always scratch off the numbers, looking for matches. Only then do I scratch the dollar amounts, but I kept getting these symbols that I’d never seen before.” Curiosity quickly turned to excitement as he uncovered the figure beneath each symbol. “There were $500s and $100s under each of them, and then I saw that a bunch of my numbers matched, too. And, there were $500s under those. It really was thrilling.”
Waiting so long to cash his prize not only allowed him to savor his big win, but also to decide how he would spend his prize. “There’s a big expense coming up for me soon, something that was really worrying me,” he said. “Now I’m not so worried.”
The Diamond Spectacular game still has one $1 million top prize available along with one $50,000 prize, four more $10,000 winners and thousands of others ranging from $20 to $5,000.