Man buys cheaper lottery ticket to appease wife, then prize made him go ‘crazy’

A man’s decision to switch out his lottery ticket for a cheaper one landed him an insane prize, Maryland officials said.

The man was out with friends in Baltimore when he was thinking of buying a $30 FAST PLAY ticket, according to a July 30 news release by the Maryland Lottery.

After thinking his wife would be mad about the ticket’s prize, he opted for the $20 FAST PLAY Extreme Green ticket instead, having no idea it would be carrying a $1,045,588 prize.

“At first when I got it, I went crazy,” the Dundalk man, who regularly plays, told lottery officials. “I looked at it and my eyes rolled back in my head!”

Before this win, his personal best was $1,500, officials said.

After signing the ticket and calling his wife to tell her the good news, the man drove home, officials said.

“When he came home, he couldn’t find the ticket,” the man’s wife told officials.

Luckily, it was left in his wallet on the car’s center console, the lottery said.

The winner doesn’t have concrete plans for the money but plans to continue playing the lottery because “he enjoys the thrill of it,” officials said.

This story was originally published July 30, 2024 at 5:21 PM with the headline "Man buys cheaper lottery ticket to appease wife, then prize made him go ‘crazy’."