A seasoned lottery player from New York, who was visiting Maryland with his wife, was pleasantly surprised by a hefty scratch-off prize.
Juan Infante, together with his wife loved visiting Maryland. The couple from New York City liked Maryland so much that they are now looking for a house to buy.
Luckily for them, the husband recently scored a top prize from one of the Maryland Lottery's popular scratch-off games.
The Lottery confirmed in a statement that Infante purchased several scratch-off tickets from Sam's Lobby Shop in Baltimore City.
To the surprise of the lucky lottery player, he scored a $50,000 top prize from Cash Boom.
Recalling the day he visited the lottery retailer, Infante said that was planning to buy a crossword scratch-off ticket.
The New York City man tried his luck with one crossword scratch-off ticket that turned out as a non-winner.
Then, Infante decided to buy another one and won $10. This is when the lottery player decided to also buy one $5 Cash Boom ticket.
"That ticket (Cash Boom) caught my eye, but I played the crossword," the lucky player told Lottery officials.
Undoubtedly, adding the Cash Boom ticket was a good decision, considering that he scored one of the game's top prizes for a $50,000 payout.
Infante added: "It revealed three vaults. I thought it was $50, so I scanned it. Then I saw all the zeros!"
After selling the winning ticket, the retailer benefitted from a $500 bonus.
Speaking about the house hunt, Infante said: "Maryland's doing a great job. This is a down payment!"
Maryland Lottery's Cash Boom scratch-off ticket was introduced back in September 2023.
Offering overall odds of winning any prize of 1 in 3.99, the ticket with $5 cost grants players a chance to win prizes between $10 and $50,000.
After the fortunate lottery player from New York City scored one of the top prizes, only three $50,000 prizes remain in play.
When Cash Boom was introduced, there were a total of 14 tier-two prizes of $5,000 up for grabs. Now, only four such prizes remain in play.
A tier-three prize pays out $1,000 and while there were 28 such prizes at the launch of the game, now, nine remain up for grabs.
Image credit: Pixabay.com