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The Howard County man, who called himself ‘Born to be Rich’ when he arrived at lottery headquarters in Baltimore to claim his winnings, picked up a $10 scratch-off and four $5 scratch-offs at Oakland Mills Wine & Spirits in Columbia and won $30, he tells officials.
Later that day, he came back to use the winnings for more scratchers and decided to grab a $30 one.
“I said out loud, ‘Let me test my luck,’” he told lottery officials.
He chose the lighter of two green $100,000 Lucky instant tickets and took it to his car.
The Columbia man works with his dad at their residential cleaning company and needed to visit the bank. He took his chance to scratch the ticket while waiting for his turn at the ATM.
“I scratched half of the ticket,” he told officials. After taking a break to use the ATM, he finished the scratcher, which had an autowin symbol and what he thought was a $100 prize.
But he hadn’t fully uncovered the amount. He stopped at a lottery retailer later that day to claim his prize. He had accidentally rubbed too hard on the prize check area for the vending machine to read it so he asked the store clerk to cash in his $100 winning scratch-off.
“He scanned it and he made a weird face and he wrote down a number,” ‘Born to be Rich’ told officials. “I said, ‘What’s wrong?’ and he said, ‘You won $100,000.’” “I was jumping with joy,” he said.
“I thought it was $100 for seven hours.”
The store clerk urged him to sign the scratcher and take it home.
“I felt like it was a Willy Wonka movie,” he said.
“The clerk was like, ‘Hold onto it tight, go to the car and go right home.’ I was shaking so badly.”
The winner plans to pay off bills and invest the rest in the windfall.
The $100,000 Lucky scratch-off still has 27 $100,000 top prizes, 18 $5,000 prizes and others ranging from $30 to $500.
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