Paul Long and the two good friends he meets for coffee every Sunday morning are big Maryland Lottery fans. They each buy tickets for themselves during the week, playing games from Keno and Pick 3 to Mega Millions and Powerball. Sunday is scratch-off day.
The trio has agreed that playing instant tickets is strictly a shared Sunday activity, as is winning any prizes they discover on those quiet weekend mornings. A lucky 20x The Cash scratch-off carried a prize so large it shattered the serenity of their recent Sunday gathering.
“I didn’t believe it at first,” said Paul, an electrician. “I looked at it a few times and then just handed it to my buddies.” The $50,000 top-prize scratch-off shocked him. What followed, when he passed the scratch-off around the table, was chaos.
“We were jumping around like 2-year-olds,” said the 49-year-old husband and father. “That quiet Sunday morning at the convenience store all of a sudden became a rock concert.”
The trio plans to split the prize, as they’d agreed to do more than two years ago when they began this weekend ritual. Paul and his wife – who still doesn’t believe this is all true and won’t until he shows her the check – plan to fund a few home improvement projects with their winnings, add to their children’s education accounts and take a family trip. His first Sunday upon returning to his Mechanicsville home, Paul assures us, will be spent talking with his friends, sipping hot coffee and wondering if Lottery luck might just strike twice.
The 20x The Cash game went on sale in late January and still has six of its 10 $50,000 top prize-winning tickets awaiting discovery along with thousands of others with prizes ranging from $5 to $5,000. A member of the Multiplier family of scratch-off games, the 20x The Cash instant ticket is joined by 5x the Cash, 10x The Cash, 50x The Cash and 100x The Cash instant tickets.
The trio’s lucky gathering site is the Mechanicsville Burchmart #1 located at 27350 Three Notch Road in St. Mary’s County. For selling the top-prize scratch-off in the $5 game, the Mechanicsville store will receive a $500 bonus from the Lottery.