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An adults-only Easter Egg hunt that has become a yearly thing for a Harford County family involving instant tickets and eggs resulting in a big win this year for a woman going by an apt name.
Melissa Blessing's family members all bring instant tickets to the party each year, separate them randomly into groups and assign each a number, she said.
Each hidden egg is then numbered, with the corresponding scratch-offs going to the finder.
“We all like scratch tickets,” Melissa Blessing told Lottery officials. “And, since there are no kids involved in our gathering, they make great replacements for candy.
“It really is a lot of fun.”
A Harford County government employee, the 911 operator called herself only an occasional Lottery player who has never hit this kind of windfall.
"The most I’ve ever won was $2, but I keep buying them because I really enjoy playing.”
At the end of the hunt, Blessing said that the family scratches their tickets together, and she turned a $5 Money Money Money scratch-off ticket into a $50,000 jackpot.
“I saw the match and must have read over the instructions five times,” Melissa told Lottery officials, though she was still unconvinced. She had her family check the ticket and later had it confirmed on the Maryland Lottery app.
According to the Havre de Grace resident, she plans to pay some bills with the unexpected win, and do some traveling with her prize money.
“I still can’t believe this has happened,” she said. “As we were all leaving, everyone was saying that this was an Easter we’ll be talking about for years.”
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