Man receives lottery ticket as Christmas gift — then wins big. ‘This can’t be right’

A man had to step away from a holiday party to make sure a Christmas gift from his friend — a lottery ticket — was really a winner.

The friend gifted two lottery tickets to a married couple at an annual holiday party shortly before Christmas, according to a Dec. 26 news release from the Maryland Lottery.

“I waited until my wife struck out with hers, then I started scratching,” the lucky winner later told lottery officials.

At first, he saw he had won $10,000 and thought to himself, “This can’t be right,” he told the Maryland Lottery.

As he kept scratching, he eventually revealed a $100,000 top prize in the Snowflake Tripler game.

“I didn’t believe it,” the retired Baltimore man told lottery officials. “Just couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”

He said no one else believed it either, so he briefly left the party and stopped by a retailer to confirm the amount.

He had really won $100,000.

“When I got back to the party, the celebration went up a few notches,” he told lottery officials.

He added the friend who gave him the ticket was happy for him.

The Baltimore liquor store that sold the ticket received a $1,000 bonus for selling the winning ticket, according to the Maryland Lottery.

This story was originally published December 27, 2024 at 11:31 AM with the headline "Man receives lottery ticket as Christmas gift — then wins big. ‘This can’t be right’."