Progressive jackpot on VIP Club game delivers $2,948,742 prize
She’s not a Lottery player, but thanks to her husband’s interest in the games, a Baltimore County woman is now a Lottery millionaire. And so is her husband.
The two visited Maryland Lottery headquarters in Baltimore on Nov. 26 to claim a $2,948,742 prize on the $30 progressive jackpot FAST PLAY game VIP Club. It is the largest progressive jackpot prize in the nearly five-year history of FAST PLAY games, which launched in February 2020. The previous record was $2,620,246 on a ticket sold in October of 2021.
While they are keeping the win very low key in anticipation of retirement, they did share their winning story.
In early November, the husband visited J&S Liquors in Randallstown to buy his usual tickets, Cash4Life, Mega Millions and Powerball. As he was making his purchase, he saw a notification that the VIP Club progressive jackpot was nearly $3 million, and he asked the clerk about the game.
“You know the ticket costs $30?” the clerk asked. The player hesitated, but decided to give the ticket a try. Later, when he checked it, he discovered he had won $200. A few days later he cashed the ticket, and with his winnings, he decided to buy two more VIP Club tickets, and he took them home and stashed them in a safe place.
Then, a few days after that, he was planning on buying his usual tickets again, but he started hearing the buzz about a big winning ticket that had been sold at J&S Liquors. As the story unfolded, the details matched the as-yet unaware winner’s experience. And when he realized that, he rushed home to find his pair of stashed VIP Club tickets.
“I wonder what he’s doing,” his wife recalled thinking.
Upon checking one of the two tickets, he brought it to his wife and said, in an unexcited tone, “We’re millionaires.”
She wasn’t immediately convinced. “He doesn’t seem excited, but he gets excited,” she explained.
With a skeptical eye, she reviewed the ticket and, sure enough, confirmed their pending millionaire status.
Then the winner stashed the ticket away and checked the other one. It also was a winner for $50. The two waited more than a week to visit Lottery headquarters to claim the prize.
“It needed to marinade for a couple of days,” the winner said.
The prize brings retirement a step closer. The lucky winner is a live-to-work kind of guy, and his wife has been trying to get him to retire. She is skeptical as to whether he will actually give up going to work. “We’ll see,” she said.
J&S Liquors, located at 10000 Liberty Road in Randallstown, also has reason to celebrate. The store will receive a bonus of $1,000 for selling the winning ticket.
