Lottery player got license plate she didn’t like — then its numbers helped her win big

A woman’s license plate that she “despised” helped her win big, lottery officials in Maryland said.

The 50-year-old had requested to change the plate number but after not being able to, she settled for it, according to a Sept. 12 news release from the Maryland Lottery.

She had no clue a tweak of her plate number would help her win $50,000 in Baltimore, officials said.

The lucky winner had been playing the Pick 3 and Pick 4 games before she switched over to the Pick 5 game after it launched, lottery officials said.

She kept playing different sets of numbers until “one combination kept popping up and it was a variation” of her plate, the release said.

“It kept appearing everywhere,” the winner told lotto officials. “I saw it on paperwork at my job, on other car tags, on TV, everywhere.”

That’s when the winner started playing the number 9-1-1-0-4, the release said.

She played the number on a $1 game and scored $50,000, officials said.

“I just started crying,” the player told officials. “I really never thought it would actually come out.”

The winner’s husband said the win “could not have come at a better time,” the release said.

The woman plans to use the earnings toward bills and invest the rest, lottery officials said.

This story was originally published September 12, 2023 at 1:49 PM with the headline "Lottery player got license plate she didn’t like — then its numbers helped her win big."