Man wins $2 million on Powerball after accidentally playing lottery numbers twice

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (Gray News) - A lucky lottery player in Maryland won two $1 million prizes thanks to accidentally replaying the same numbers twice.

According to the Maryland Lottery, the Anne Arundel County man hit the million-dollar prizes during the April 1 Powerball drawing.

Lottery officials said he told them that he normally plays the lottery when the jackpot gets to a billion dollars.

When the jackpot rose to $1 billion for the April 1 drawing, he said he grabbed a few of his tickets from prior drawings and visited an area 7-Eleven to try and win the big prize.

Officials said the man played the replay option that allows players to scan their previous tickets to the new game with the same numbers selected.

On April 2, while checking the lottery results, the man found a ticket that matched the first five numbers without the winning Powerball.

He called his wife to tell her they had won $1 million.

“We had our crying moment,” he shared. “Twenty minutes after that, when I put the ticket down and went back to the other tickets.”

The lucky winner said that’s when he came across the second million-dollar ticket, realizing he had inadvertently purchased two tickets with the same set of numbers.

“It was mind-blowing,” the father of two said. “I had no idea I doubled it.”

The couple said they plan to invest their prize money.

For selling the two $1 million Powerball tickets, the 7-Eleven store in Annapolis earned a $5,000 bonus from the Maryland Lottery.