24 Bonus Match 5 lottery tickets sold at one Maryland store win top prize

Jun 19, 2020, 7:33 am (7 comments)

Maryland Lottery

Could there possibly be a downside to such a huge and improbable win?

By Kate Northrop

Someone must have had a really good feeling that five particular numbers were going to be drawn in the Maryland Lottery's Bonus Match 5 game, because they won the top prize on 24 separate tickets purchased from one store.

We don't know yet if it those tickets were purchased by one person or multiple people, but we do know that on Friday, June 12, a total of 24 Bonus Match 5 tickets purchased in one store won the top prize for matching all five numbers: 2, 9, 11, 13, and 17.

Unfortunately this is one of those good news/bad news stories.

It turns out that like most lottery games with a fixed top prize (in this case $50,000), Bonus Match 5 has a prize cap in order to limit the lottery's losses in the case of some freakish win — like this one.

The Bonus Match 5 game offers $50,000 for every ticket to match all five numbers. However, the allotted prize pool, which is $600,000, allows for a maximum of 12 top-prize winners per draw in order to fulfill the top-prize payout of $50,000 per winning ticket.

Once there is more than 12 winners in one drawing, the $600,000 prize pool is split by all the top winners instead of awarding a fixed $50,000 prize per winning ticket.

With a staggering total of 24 winning lottery tickets, the prize payout for each matching line is essentially cut in half, making each top-prize-winning ticket worth $25,000 instead of $50,000. If there was no prize cap, those 24 winning tickets would be worth $1.2 million.

"In the unlikely event more than 12 game boards correctly match five of five winning numbers in a single drawing, each game board matching five of five numbers will receive an equal share of the $600,000 pool," the Maryland Lottery reads on its website.

Since all 24 tickets were sold at a single location, the Spring Ridge Exxon gas station, it is highly likely that all, or most, were bought by the same player, in which case the player would be awarded the full $600,000 prize pool.

Amazingly, it's not the first time this has happened. In 2016, a Baltimore man won the entire $600,000 prize pool when he purchased multiple tickets with identical numbers. He ended up being the sole player to match all five numbers.

The Spring Ridge Exxon convenience store on Spring Ridge Parkway in Frederick will receive $6,000 for selling all 24 winning lottery tickets.

The Maryland Lottery recommends that winners sign the back of their ticket(s) and keeping them in a safe place until claiming their winnings. Players would normally have 182 days to claim their prize, but winners in the June 12 drawing will have 30 days after the state's COVID-19 state of emergency has been lifted. While the lottery claim centers are currently closed, the lottery offers alternatives to claiming a prize.

Lottery Post Staff

Comments

music*'s avatarmusic*

 If it is too good to be true than it probably is. That was my first thought. Scam maybe.

  I wonder how many players who bet like this are playing. How many winners and how many losers?

Stack47

A few years ago, RJOH and I discussed when an Ohio Buckeye Five player bought 52 tickets with the same 5 numbers hoping to win $5.2 million.  And he actually matched all five numbers and then got the bad news, the Ohio Lottery had a $1 million payoff cap. It got even worse because another player had just one winning ticket and was only worth $18,868 instead of $100,000. The Ohio Lottery paid the single ticket winner $100,000 and paid the winner with 52 tickets $981,000.

Playing the same numbers multiple times happens every day because many players do it, but it's almost always on $1 a ticket games. Been awhile since PB or MM had multiple jackpot winning tickets, but a few players probably buy more than one ticket with the same 6 numbers.

GiveFive's avatarGiveFive

Quote: Originally posted by Stack47 on Jun 19, 2020

A few years ago, RJOH and I discussed when an Ohio Buckeye Five player bought 52 tickets with the same 5 numbers hoping to win $5.2 million.  And he actually matched all five numbers and then got the bad news, the Ohio Lottery had a $1 million payoff cap. It got even worse because another player had just one winning ticket and was only worth $18,868 instead of $100,000. The Ohio Lottery paid the single ticket winner $100,000 and paid the winner with 52 tickets $981,000.

Playing the same numbers multiple times happens every day because many players do it, but it's almost always on $1 a ticket games. Been awhile since PB or MM had multiple jackpot winning tickets, but a few players probably buy more than one ticket with the same 6 numbers.

I buy five identical lines on my PowerBall ticket and I add the PowerPlay option as well.  Essentially it costs me $15 to play one set of six numbers five times.

I do this because I'm not focused on a first place win.  I'm more interested in a second place win as the odds are eleven million to one as opposed to 292 million to 1 for first place (the jackpot).  Should I ever be so lucky to match the first 5 numbers, then hopefully my ticket could be worth 10 million dollars.  I say "could be" because I've wondered if the PB second place prize pool would be big enough to pay out 10 million dollars.  How unlikely is it that PB would see five second place winners is the question.  I've seen where they've had three second place winners, but not every 2nd place winner bought the PowerPlay option. 

One thing is for sure.  It'd be a real nice problem to have to deal with.  G5 

maximumfun's avatarmaximumfun

We play numbers from the same "pool" of numbers - but rarely the same exact numbers each game.  That would take an amazing amount of commitment! 

 

Hopefully all 24 tickets weren't purchased by the same person, otherwise, they should have read the rules to realize that they were throwing away 12 purchases...

DELotteryPlyr's avatarDELotteryPlyr

So I saw/heard about this the day after it happened.  I was watching the live eve drawing on TV and on the bottom there was a crawl that said someone won $600k in Bonus Match 5 and gave the town.  My first assumption was it was just 12 tickets.  Now that I see its 24, WOW! This person must have been shooting for 2nd place trying to maximize their win.  Even though it was maxed at $600k I would still TAKE IT & RUN!!!

Oh, and BM5 costs $2 for 3 plays so it would only cost $16 to play 24 lines. 

jplayer33

You have to be right. Multiple tickets with the same numbers means the person was perhaps hoping to hit four numbers for the $400 prize multiplied by 24 to collect nearly $10,000. The odds of hitting the top $50,000 jackpot are 1 in 575,757, according to the Maryland Lottery. The odds of matching four numbers is only 1 in 3,489 so that was a very good bet. But certainly matching all 5 numbers to grab the maximum $600,000 show that sometimes you can beat the odds in spectacular fashion. By the way, DELotteryPlyr I stopped playing there when the state went to computer drawing, seemed too easy to rig to me.

Thomas8655

Not suspicious at all...

End of comments
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