Lottery player uses late mom’s birthday as numbers — and wins big. ‘Unbelievable’
A Maryland lottery player won a top prize with a number combination from her late mother’s birthday, lottery officials said.
“I’ve been thinking about my mom recently, more so than I usually do,” the Frederick County woman told the Maryland Lottery, according to a May 6 news release. “... It gave me the idea to use some numbers from her birthday.”
With those numbers, the lucky player won a top prize worth $50,000 in the April 29 Pick 5 drawing, lottery officials said.
“It really was unbelievable. I went from joy to doubt and back again,” the woman told the lottery.
She said she’s been using the number combination for the past few weeks on lottery games, and this win marks her biggest to date, according to lottery officials.
The woman said her win wasn’t because of luck or random chance, but because of her mother that she won, the lottery said.
The winning ticket was purchased from a gas station in Damascus, about a 40-mile drive southwest from Baltimore, lottery officials said.
The odds of matching all five digits in the exact order of the winning numbers in Pick 5 are 1 in 100,000, according to the game’s web page.
This story was originally published May 6, 2025 at 6:15 PM with the headline "Lottery player uses late mom’s birthday as numbers — and wins big. ‘Unbelievable’."
