Man buys $3 lottery ticket and nearly throws it away — then discovers he won big

A retired contractor bought a $3 lottery ticket in Maryland and almost threw it away.

Then he realized he won $30,000.

Jorge Baez Ventura of Bowie spent $20 on scratch-off tickets and only won $3 from all of the games, the Maryland Lottery said in an April 16 news release.

He put the $3 toward one last game — a Fast Play Battleship ticket he got in Capitol Heights, lottery officials said.

Baez Ventura didn’t check the ticket for five days.

When he did, he realized he had won the game’s top prize, the lottery office said. He called his daughter and shared the news.

Now he has plans to spend the prize money on his family and on a trip to the Dominican Republic.

Bowie is about a 30-mile drive southwest of Baltimore.

This story was originally published April 16, 2024 at 2:04 PM with the headline "Man buys $3 lottery ticket and nearly throws it away — then discovers he won big."

Helena Wegner

McClatchy DC

Helena Wegner is a McClatchy National Real-Time Reporter covering the state of Washington and the western region. She’s a journalism graduate from Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. She’s based in Phoenix.