Dessert Enthusiast Enjoying $30K Piece Of Maryland Lottery Pie

Life is a little sweeter for a self-professed dessert lover from Baltimore who won a five-figure prize playing a Maryland Lottery scratcher.

Brenda Richardson is known among friends and family for her baking skills, but now she will be known for her Lottery Luck after winning a $30,000 top prize playing a Bonus Crossword scratch-off ticket.

The Baltimore nurse says that she purchased the golden ticket at Tobacco Stop on Chesaco Avenue in Rosedale, where she regularly picks up scratchers, though there was something special about her winner.

Richardson said that she picked up the last Bonus Crossword ticket in the book, but as she was leaving to go about her day, she spotted the clerk restocking the tickets, and her intuition was that the biggest winners are located near the beginning or end of each reel.

Sure enough, she picked up another ticket that led to the $30,000 cash windfall.

Richardson couldn't believe her eyes, and asked to borrow someone's reading glasses so she could take a closer look. Still stunned, Richardson also had the store clerk check the ticket to confirm the win, which he did.

Then it was time to call her family to share the good news.

A nurse for more than two decades, Richardson said that she plans to use her winnings to purchase a much-needed new car, though once that is in the book, Lottery officials said that she plans to spend more time in her kitchen "whipping up her signature sweet potato pie."

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