Sticking with her favorite combination delivers two $50,000 prizes
A Baltimore nurse told Lottery officials on Friday that she was relatively new to Pick 5, having played the daily game for about two months. Players win big with Pick 5 every day, but two things about her story were unusual: she always plays the same number and she was at Lottery headquarters to pick up a $100,000 check – double the game’s prize on a winning $1 straight bet.
“I was looking at the Pick 5 numbers that had come out in the previous weeks,” the 65-year-old explained. “I just wrote some of the numbers down, doodling, really, taking two numbers from one result, three from another, switching some, reversing others. Then, all of a sudden, 77770 just popped into my head.”
She determined to keep playing the number every day if she could. “Not forever, of course, but at least until the end of the year.” Lottery luck didn’t make her wait that long.
At a family barbecue, the Baltimore woman received a phone call that threw her for a loop. “A friend of mine who knows the number combination I play called and said, ‘I bet you’re happy.’ I had no idea what she meant, but then she told me about the evening Pick 5 drawing.”
Asked about why she bought duplicate tickets for the Aug. 9 evening drawing, the winner said, “I was doodling with the numbers again and those five digits came out again. It surprised me, so I bought two tickets, just in case it meant something.”
Our Pick 5 winner credits the man upstairs for her win. “I’ve been praying about a few things I need to get taken care of – pretty big things, and then, boom!” Along with taking care of those big things, she plans to share some of the $100,000 Pick 5 prize with her church.
Also in the win column is the management of Monumental Liquors at 2125 East Monument Street in Baltimore. The lucky retailer will receive two $500 bonuses from the Lottery for each of the $50,000-winning $1 straight bet tickets sold.
