Kenneth C. Weinberg, says he’s always been lucky.
“I don’t know if you can put this in print,” he says with a light chuckle, “but some people accuse me of having a horseshoe up my [butt].”
A Baltimore native and resident of Columbia since 1976, Weinberg recently won a Maryland Lottery $50,000 Cash scratch-off, the instant ticket’s top prize. That alone, of course, would qualify him as quite fortunate and blessed.
But over the past three decades, Weinberg, 70, who buys tickets on a daily basis, has won Maryland Lottery prizes of $50,000 or more on four other occasions.
“I’ve read about different people winning more than once, or a store that sold more than one winning lottery ticket,” says Weinberg. “But I think this is pretty rare. … I think I’ve been playing the Maryland Lottery since it first started. I do a lot of scratch-offs and the Pick-4s and Bonus Match 5 and Mega-Millions, but only in the evening.”
A semi-retired drug treatment therapist who grew up attending Baltimore Hebrew Congregation and the Park School, Weinberg first won big with the lottery in the early 1990s after buying a $5 scratch-off at a Catonsville liquor store.
“I said, ‘This can’t be right — $100,000?!‘ But it was right,” he says. “After the check came, I took out enough money and gave $200 to the two people at the liquor store who sold me the ticket. It was near Christmas, so they were very excited and grateful.”
Then, in the early 2000s, Weinberg won a pair of $50,000 scratch-offs and a $50,000 Bonus Match 5 — all within a three-month period.
“I’ve always been pretty lucky [in life], for the most part” says Weinberg, who is the grandson of famed traffic safety inventor and innovator Charles Adler Jr. “I come from a lucky family.”
Weinberg’s most recent winning ticket came from a Royal Farms store in Elkridge two weeks ago.
“This time, I won with a $20 scratch-off,” he says. “It was weird. I have arthritis in my fingers, so it’s hard for me to scratch off things these days. So I stuck it in the machine [scanner] and it indicated that I won. It said, ‘Take to the Lottery,’ so I knew it had to be $50,000 or more. Then, I scratched off the bar [on the ticket] and it said, ‘$50,000.’ I said to the night manager at the Royal Farms, ‘You’ll be getting a banner soon, because I just won.’
“It was like the first time. My heart started beating so fast,” Weinberg says. “It was amazing. All I could say was, ‘Wow!’”
A couple of days later, Weinberg received a call from his sister that his photo (in a black top hat provided by the Maryland Lottery folks) and big victory were plastered all over the local news. “I signed a release, but I didn’t know they were going to put it on TV,” he says. “I hadn’t told anyone yet. Overall, everyone’s been happy for me.”
While he plays the Maryland Lottery on a daily basis and enjoys occasionally going to a Bingo parlor in Laurel, Weinberg says he’s not a particularly big gambler.
“I get bored at casinos,” he says. “I’ve only been to Vegas once, when I was 25, and I used to go to Atlantic City. But I’m not a professional gambler. I don’t do nearly as well with casinos as I do with the lottery.”
Playing the Maryland Lottery has had its ups and downs over the decades, Weinberg says. “Some years I’m on the winning side, and other years I’m not,” he says. “I don’t keep track of it all. It’s just fun for me. I enjoy it, like a hobby.”
So what does Weinberg plan to do with his most recent winnings?
Home repairs and renovations, he says.
“When COVID hit, I spent a lot of time at home, like everyone else, and I saw that my house had gotten shabby,” Weinberg says. “The backyard was like a jungle, and my kitchen was pretty much the same as it had been for the past 48 years. So I’ve been upgrading my house a lot.”
Weinberg also says he might take quick vacations to fairly close destinations like Nashville or Charleston, South Carolina, at some point in the near future. But there will be no big cruises or fancy, exotic excursions to Europe or Asia. “I’ve already been to Paris,” he says with a laugh.
In addition, he says some of his winnings will go to worthy nonprofit institutions and charities. “I’ve always given to Park School and all kinds of places,” Weinberg says. “I think being charitable is really important in life. Good karma.”
And who would know more about good karma than Ken Weinberg?
So, nu, will he continue to buy lottery tickets?
“Of course I’ll keep playing,” he says. “No reason not to.”
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