School Bus Driver Wins Five Million Dollars in Lottery Ticket — Then Calmly Goes to Work Anyway

The picture of Maurice Williams sitting in his parked car outside a 7-Eleven in Hyattsville, Maryland, with a five million dollar scratch-off ticket and then calmly, almost obstinately, driving off to begin his shift behind the wheel of a school bus is almost comical. The majority would have acted in a theatrical manner. contacted all of their acquaintances. Perhaps wept. Perhaps give up right there in the parking lot. Williams simply sat there in shock before starting to work.

It took place on May 5. The Maryland Lottery introduced the $5,000,000 LUXE scratch-off game in February, and Williams, 59, had stopped by the 7-Eleven to cash in a small $50 prize he had won earlier. Since each ticket costs fifty dollars, winning back the exact cost of a new one feels more like a courteous refund than good fortune. With the money, he purchased another ticket and stayed in his car to scratch it. Really, routine. Millions of people take this kind of mindless little diversion every morning. He scanned it after that. And 59 was the number that appeared.

He told the Maryland Lottery, “It’s crazy because the matching number was 59 and I just turned 59 the other day,” and you can practically hear the incredulity in his words—that flat, slightly perplexed tone people get when something so ridiculously coincidental occurs that the brain isn’t quite sure where to file it. In the driver’s seat, he sat motionless. The fact that he called his mother reveals more about him than any quote from the media could. A fifty-nine-year-old man with a winning lottery ticket calls his mother first. She assisted him in relaxing. He put the ticket away. Then he drove off to work in an almost willfully ordinary moment.

One can’t help but wonder what that shift was like. Did the children on his bus observe anything different about him? Whether he thought about the folded slip of paper on his person and tightened his grip on the wheel at each red light. He made an appointment to pick up the prize by calling the Maryland Lottery during his lunch break. The idea of him eating lunch—possibly the same lunch he always eats—while discreetly setting up the means to become a millionaire is what lingers.

He admitted to the lottery officials that the night before his claim appointment, he didn’t get much sleep. “I tossed and turned all night,” he reported. “I still didn’t believe it until I came here.” For those who have worked in jobs where steadiness is essential for decades, there is a certain amount of restraint in that admission. Bus drivers are unable to respond. They are drivers.

Like most truly good intentions, his plans—at least the ones he has made public—are modest. He plans to purchase a home for his mother. He says he will sit on the rest while he considers his options. Don’t talk about mansions. Not a sports vehicle. Just the quiet pragmatism of a man who, according to his own account, required a call from his mother to keep his hands steady.

According to the Maryland Lottery, there are still eight $200,000 prizes, ten $50,000 prizes, and two of the three $5 million top prizes in the LUXE game. According to statistics, there will be more Maurice Williamses. It seems improbable that any of them will respond with such poise.

The entire narrative has an odd dignity. The call to his mother, the 7-Eleven, the parked car, and the children waiting at their stops who were unaware that their driver had just won the kind of money that can completely change someone’s life. Williams responded to it by showing up, which is probably how he handles most situations. You get the impression that his mother’s house will be the first thing he does with the money, and everything else will wait. It turns out that some people don’t really require fireworks. All they need is a seat that is quiet, some time, and a familiar person on the other end of the phone.