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It didn’t come easy, but a Mechanicsville couple is up $50,000 after winning small, then a little larger, then huge while playing Lottery games at the Moose Lodge in their hometown.
The third time was the charm for Kimberly Shaw and husband Colby, who went for a night out and decided to buy a $20 “Fast Play” ticket from the Lottery vending machine at the lodge, where she doubled up and won a $40 prize.
Feeling lucky, she bought another ticket and won $90, which left her with a decision: pocket the cash or let it ride?
“I said to myself, ‘who puts $90 in a Lottery machine,” she mused at Lottery Headquarters in Baltimore. “But, I did anyway and asked my husband what I should play,” leading her to a $30 “Cash is King” scratcher at his discretion.
The rest is, as they say, history.
Following her husband’s advice, the lucky Lottery player picked up the scratch-off ticket and thought she initially won $5,000 while playing again at the lodge.
“The first number I scratched was a matched for $5,000,” Shaw said. “My heart sunk and I held the ticket to my chest.”
But she wasn’t done yet.
She whispered to her husband that she won $5,000, but that quickly led to another $5,000 discovery. She then revealed a $10,000 symbol to bring her total to $20,000. Shaw said she thought it was a joke at first, but there was more to unveil.
Still at the lodge, Shaw’s husband scanned the ticket and realized that his wife had won $50,000, not the measly $20,000 they initially believed.
“I had to scan it twice,” he said. “I thought there’s no way.”
It wasn’t until the bartender said the ticket was too costly to cash there that the happy couple realized they had actually just won $50,000, which they gladly accepted at Lottery Headquarters late last week, just hours after scratching the winning ticket.
The couple didn’t say what they plan to do with their sudden influx of cash, though they joked that when they told their teen children about the win - which they too didn’t believe at first - one reminded them she has a birthday coming up.
Timing is everything.
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