Lottery player who has ‘tried nearly every game’ since 1981 finally wins big in MD
For decades, a Maryland woman has been trying her luck at lottery games.
So much so that the Salisbury woman has “tried nearly every game” since she started playing in 1981, Maryland Lottery officials said in a Sept. 24 news release.
After trying her hand at a new game, the lottery player’s dedication finally paid off with her biggest win to date.
The woman recently started playing “Bonus Match 5 because she was feeling she wasn’t winning as often with other games,” lottery officials said.
As the woman was getting ready to leave Ocean Downs Casino in Ocean City, she said her husband decided to buy a “Bonus Match 5 ticket with three combinations ‘just in case.’”
The woman asked her husband to check their ticket later that night to see if it was a winner, lottery officials said.
“He was shocked,” the woman told lottery officials.
When the husband showed his wife the results, she said she “thought he was joking.”
“But when I saw it for myself, I was filled with excitement and emotion,” the winner said.
The husband and wife won $50,000 by matching five numbers and another $15 for other combinations, making her total prize $50,015, lottery officials said.
“I’ve been playing Bonus Match 5 for less than a year, and for this to be my biggest prize after all these years puts me on top of the world,” the woman told lottery officials.
The recent retiree said she hasn’t decided how to spend her winnings.
Salisbury is about a 115-mile drive southeast from Baltimore.
This story was originally published September 29, 2025 at 5:25 PM with the headline "Lottery player who has ‘tried nearly every game’ since 1981 finally wins big in MD."
