LUSBY — A night out with friends in Lusby turned into a $30,000 payday for a Prince Frederick woman who scratched a top prize on the Maryland Lottery’s 30X Cash game.
The woman, whom the Lottery did not name, bought the $30 ticket at Mimi’s Liquor and Gas Station, 12010 Rousby Hall Road, according to a Maryland Lottery announcement released Oct. 22. She claimed the prize Oct. 20 at Lottery headquarters in Baltimore.
The Lottery described her as a novice who plays only occasionally. About two weeks before claiming the prize, she was at Buckets Sports Bar and Grill, which sits next to the gas station, when she decided to try some scratch-offs. She walked over and bought four tickets, including the 30X Cash ticket. An earlier $100 win on the same game had encouraged her to keep playing, according to the Lottery.
‘See cashier’
She did not realize what she had at first. When she scanned the barcode, the machine told her to see the cashier, and the clerk told her she had won $30,000, she told Lottery officials. Back home that night, she said, she half-believed she had dreamed it, and it only felt real when she woke up the next morning.
She plans to pay off some bills and save the rest, according to the Lottery.
Mimi’s Liquor and Gas Station receives a $300 bonus from the Lottery for selling the winning ticket.
Plenty of top prizes left
The 30X Cash game is still young. It launched Sept. 18 with 320 top prizes of $30,000 each, and the Prince Frederick winner claimed the eighth, leaving 312 unclaimed, according to the Lottery. The game also has 37 second-tier prizes of $5,000 still waiting to be found, plus thousands of smaller prizes from $30 to $500.
The win is the latest in a run of Southern Maryland scratch-off prizes this month. A Charles County contractor won $500,000 on a re-gifted ticket, and a first-time player from Mechanicsville turned a ticket into $50,000.
