Baltimore man’s erroneous addition of Bonus option winds up quadrupling prize
Keno is his favorite Lottery game, said the retired truck driver from Baltimore. Sometimes he’ll play a 10-spot game, like he did on June 5, while he hangs out at a neighborhood bar with friends. On other nights, he might play a 5-spot ticket. He likes to watch the Keno monitor as the numbers pop up, one by one, in hopes of seeing his numbers match.
On the night he won the biggest Keno prize of his life, the loyal player stopped at North Point Liquor & Bar in Baltimore. He filled out a playslip for a 10-spot ticket for 10 games, at $4 a game, added the Bonus multiplier option, and gave it to the bar employee. She questioned him when she saw the price of the ticket. He hadn’t expected the Bonus feature to boost the ticket price so high. “She said, ‘This is $40. Do you want to keep it?’ I said, ‘Go ahead.’ I always keep my mistake tickets.”
The longtime player does so because he fears the “mistake” ticket’s numbers will come out if he refuses the ticket, he said. As he sat watching the fourth game play, the grandfather of one realized his numbers were popping up.
“I said to myself, ‘Oh my goodness, I got nine out of 10!’” he recalled. He scanned the ticket on the spot. “It said $32,000. I said, ‘Oh my goodness, I’ve got to do a double take.’” He scanned it again and then quietly put the lucky ticket in his wallet and went home, where he signed it and kept it in a safe place until claiming the prize at Lottery headquarters.
The dedicated player plans to put his windfall into the bank for safekeeping. Also in the money is the Baltimore County Lottery retailer. North Point Liquor & Bar located at 1110 North Point Road in Baltimore will receive a $320 bonus from the Lottery for selling a winning Keno ticket of $10,000 or more. The bonus is equal to 1% of the prize.
