Most people dread overtime, but one Baltimore man is now thanking it with his whole heart after winning a lottery. After a long day on the streets of Baltimore, a street sweeper identified only by his initials, A.R., made a quick detour on his way home that most people wouldn't think twice about.
He stopped at his local Wawa, picked up a sandwich, and almost as an afterthought, he grabbed two scratch-off lottery tickets to go with it.
That afterthought just paid him $100,000.
A total of 11 Maryland Lottery players in the state won prizes of $50,000 or more in the past week, including a $100,000 winner in Reisterstown, a $57,777 winner in Cockeysville, and $50,000 prizes in Aberdeen, Arnold, Baltimore, Bowie, Parkville, Pikesville, and Middle River.… pic.twitter.com/wKnqdr8agk
— NottinghamMD (@Nottingham_MD) January 13, 2025
According to UPI, A.R. told Maryland Lottery officials he had just finished an overtime shift on April 19 when he pulled into the Wawa store on Pulaski Highway in Rosedale. He walked out with a meal and a pair of scratch-offs.
Later that evening, he scratched the tickets and one of them, a 50X The Cash game, turned out to be a $100,000 top-prize winner. No excessive display of wealth, no wild story. Just a tired man, a long shift, and a lucky ticket sitting quietly next to his dinner.
The Maryland Lottery's official site noted that A.R. — who describes the past year as "rough" — claimed his prize at Lottery headquarters on April 24.
A.R. said he is keeping his lottery win completely under wraps. As for the money, he plans to use it to pay off bills and purchase a new vehicle. Practical, sensible, and refreshingly drama-free for a man who just struck six figures on a gas station scratch-off.
A.R. is not alone in finding that Wawa on Pulaski Highway is unusually kind to lottery players.
The same stretch of road has seen its share of Lottery luck — another Middle River man, who dubbed himself "Wawa Winner," walked out of the same Rosedale location in February 2026 with a $50,000 prize on a 200X The Cash ticket he bought between work shifts. At this rate, Wawa might want to consider changing its sign.
Working overtime leads Maryland man to $100,000 lottery prize #UPI https://t.co/wbMInVmdy5
— #TuckFrump (@realTuckFrumper) April 27, 2026
The 50X The Cash scratch-off is one of the Maryland Lottery's popular higher-tier instant games, with top prizes reaching $100,000. According to Fox Baltimore, 50X The Cash tickets have generated multiple $100,000 wins at different locations across Maryland in recent weeks alone — proof that the game has been particularly generous this spring.
Still, there is something about A.R.'s story that stands apart from the usual lottery tale. He wasn't chasing a jackpot. He wasn't playing numbers he'd been tracking for months.
He punched out after an overtime shift — the kind most people grumble through — and made a simple, human pit stop. The overtime, the sandwich, the tickets: none of it was calculated. All of it lined up just right.
