Maryland – Eric Brown is a faithful Powerball player. The Maryland resident doesn’t care if the jackpot is $40 million or $600 million – he always buys a month’s worth of Powerball tickets. This time, his favorite numbers proved very lucky for the St. Mary’s County man. Although he didn’t bring home the $570 million jackpot on Sept. 29, he did win a $50,000 third-tier prize that tripled to $150,000 because of a 3X Power Play.
The 52-year-old married father of two teenage daughters started trying his luck with Powerball in 2009. He plays sports jersey numbers from high school plus his favorite numbers of 7 and 11. Last week, he tried his Powerball luck at his favorite Lottery retailer, Sheetz located at 22711 Three Notch Road in California. He purchased 15 draws through Oct. 25. He also bought a soda and then headed to work.
Eric checks the Lottery website the day after each drawing. When he checked the results of the Sept. 29 drawing, he saw familiar numbers! He matched four of the white balls and the red Powerball number.
“I was like, ‘Whoa’, I have a lot of these numbers,” said the winner. “And then, I looked again and realized I had the Powerball, too. I know that four numbers and the Powerball is a $50,000 win!”
Excited, Eric called his wife at work to tell her of his big win. “I think we won $50,000,” he told her. Wanting to confirm the win, Eric did a bit of research and saw that adding Power Play to his ticket multiplied his prize to $150,000. To confirm the win, he downloaded the *Maryland Lottery app *and scanned the ticket. Sure enough, a congratulatory message showed that he won $150,000.
“I had to call my wife back,” he said. “She was not convinced and I had to send her three pictures. One was of the website numbers, one of the actual ticket and then the $150,000 winning message.”
The program manager for the Navy said he is feeling extremely grateful for his Lottery luck.
“This is such a blessing and came right in time for our family,” he said. Eric, who will celebrate 25 years of marriage in June, plans to use some of the winnings for an already planned anniversary trip to Hawaii where he and his wife will renew their vows. As far as the rest of the prize, he says he will pay down some debt and save the remainder of the funds.
In 2021, Maryland has had one jackpot win of $731.1 million, two second-tier $2 million wins, three second-tier $1 million wins along with 46 third-tier wins of $50,000 to $150,000. In addition to Eric’s third-tier $150,000 win, another lucky ticket worth $50,000 was sold in Chesapeake City from that same drawing.
Since its inception in 1973, Maryland Lottery and Gaming has awarded more than $29.8 billion in prizes to Lottery players and more than $17.9 billion in Lottery revenue to the State of Maryland. One of Maryland’s largest revenue sources, the Lottery supports important state programs and services including education, public safety and health, human resources and the environment. For more information, go to mdgamblinghelp.org or call 1-800-426-2537.