Woman Wins $100,000 Lottery Prize Using Numbers from Her Car’s Odometer

A Maryland Lottery player recently got her big break with a little help from an unlikely source.

After finding smaller successes with the game Pick 4 — including a $5,000 prize — a woman from Fort Washington "decided to try her hand" at its counterpart, Pick 5, and bought two tickets, lottery officials said on Thursday, April 3.

Adopting a successful strategy that brought her luck in Pick 4, the woman, who chose to remain anonymous, picked the last five digits of the odometer on her car.

Then she drove away from the 7-Eleven where she bought the tickets.

When she returned later that night, stopping to pick up a few items and to scan her tickets, she realized she had won the top prize. Twice.

Her total prize came to $100,000 — a surprise win that is both "a dream and a blessing," she said in a statement.

"When I scanned my ticket, it said, '$50,000 winner.' I was shook! I ran out of the store and went straight to my car to call my dad," she said.

In addition to the $100,000 win, the 7-Eleven that sold the tickets will also collect a check of $1,000 total, or $500 for each winning ticket.

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The woman plans to keep her win mostly to herself to pay off some of her bills and her car.

But, she said, she will also share some funds with her dad as gratitude for him being a great parent.