LAUREL, Md. – Hitting the wrong button on a self-serve Lottery vending machine led to this Bowie man’s $50,000 Powerball win.
Fed self-serve vending machine extra $20 that purchased winning quick-pick ticket
Hitting the wrong button on a Lottery self-serve vending machine led a Bowie man to make a series of decisions that gave him a $50,000 prize and a trip to the Lottery Winner’s Circle in Baltimore.
Nicknamed “Carlos Medina,” the anonymous player visited Royal Farms #244 in Laurel to buy food, charge up his electric vehicle and buy a few Powerball tickets for the Dec. 10 drawing.
The auto business employee meant to buy $20 worth of tickets from the machine, but he accidentally hit the button that triggered the machine to cash him out, and the machine printed a $20 voucher instead.
“Carlos Medina” scanned the voucher to put his $20 in credit back onto the machine, but inadvertently added another $20 to his order. Realizing he now had $40 worth of credit on the vending machine, “Carlos Medina” decided to buy four $10 Powerball quick-pick tickets and went home.
Around 2 a.m., he finished painting a bathroom in his home’s basement and remembered to check his Powerball tickets. First, he Googled, “Who won the Powerball?” using his phone. Seeing that no one won the jackpot that night, he checked the winning numbers on his phone against those on his tickets. And one of those tickets delivered a $50,000 prize! He was so excited that he woke up his brother to share the news.
The happy winner plans to put his prize in the bank and might use some of the funds for a vacation.