Lottery player reveals life-changing win — but husband thinks she’s ‘pranking him’
A casual lottery player was having a particularly unlucky day dealing with car trouble, so he had his wife try her luck at a scratch-off he’d bought at a Maryland store.
“I brought it home and gave it to my wife,” he told lottery officials, according to a Feb. 6 news release. “I said, ‘You’re lucky. Give us some scratch-off luck.’”
And that’s exactly what she did. In fact, she was so very lucky he didn’t believe her when she told him the Monopoly X100 game had made them instant millionaires.
“I thought it was a prank,” he told lottery officials, adding that his doubts dissipated once he looked at the instant ticket for himself and realized she was telling the truth. “This is unbelievable. What a feeling!”
The man is “not a big scratch-offs player” and usually sticks to Powerball and Mega Millions tickets, he told officials. But he had $20 in his pocket — the exact amount the Monopoly X100 game costs.
When he got home and gave the ticket to his wife, he left the room as she scratched the instant ticket, officials said.
“It’s often the case that identifying a winning match requires a careful eye, but not so this time,” officials said. “The second of the five Winning Numbers listed across the top of the play area was 40, and directly below that in the second spot of the first line of Your Numbers was also a 40. Below that number, in bold, was a $1,000,000 prize. She knew instantly they were millionaires.”
The couple plans to use the bulk of their winnings to pay off the house they bought recently, setting themselves up to be able to retire in about seven years, officials said. They’re also considering building a house in the Philippines.
This story was originally published February 7, 2025 at 7:23 AM with the headline "Lottery player reveals life-changing win — but husband thinks she’s ‘pranking him’."
