RETAILER ROUNDUP: Stoko’s Sells $50,000-Winning Bonus Match 5 Ticket
STOKO’S, TOWSON
HUSBAND’S LOTTERY ROUTINE LEADS TO JUBILANT CELEBRATION
Owner Gurdial (Johnny) Bhulla (left) with Rajan Giri, a Lottery clerk displays the promotional banner.
PLAYING LOTTERY GAMES is a fun way to break up the routine of his days, the Baltimore retiree said. His wife teleworks at home so he heads out to a Lottery retailer in the mornings to buy tickets for midday and evening drawings.
Sometimes, he adds a scratch-off to the mix and sometimes buys other games. Never before has he come home with a $50,000-winning Bonus Match 5 ticket.
“This is my mission,” he said with a smile. “I bring them home and put them on the table.” He’ll check to see if his Pick 4 ticket hit, but otherwise leaves the games there for his wife to play after they finish dinner. “That’s our ritual.”
On Jan. 2, he bought tickets at Stoko’s in Towson and then left them on the table for his wife to enjoy. Among the tickets was a $2 Bonus Match 5 quick-pick ticket for that night’s drawing. After dinner, she checked all of the tickets for a win.
“She came up and said, ‘I want you to look at this ticket.’ I’m the one who’s calm under pressure,” he told Lottery officials, so he checked the Bonus Match 5 winning numbers against those on the ticket she handed him. “I looked and said, ‘We got a few numbers.’ A little bit later, I said, ‘We got all the numbers.’”
His wife, who was already happy thinking they had a small win, began jumping up and down and celebrating, he said.
They had not yet decided how to spend their prize other than put the funds in the bank and consider a summer vacation, the husband said.
Also celebrating their win was their lucky retailer. Stoko’s, located at 6821 Loch Raven Boulevard in Baltimore County, earned a $500 Lottery bonus for selling a top-prize winning Bonus Match 5 ticket. Lottery District Sales Manager Mike Nicolaides also delivered a promotional banner to the Expanded Cashing Authority Program retailer to put on display to market the store’s lucky status.
“This is a large sub shop with a high traffic flow of customers who enjoy the attention paid to Lottery players,” Nicolaides said. “The owner is very happy to have sold this top-prize winning Bonus Match 5 ticket as well as, over the years, the many other big prize-winning tickets in a variety of games.”
MIKE NICOLAIDES
Customers can choose from 125 scratch-off facings and other games sold through a vending machine and at three countertop terminals. A dedicated Lottery clerk keeps player lines moving quickly. This lucky location also has an expansive stay-and-play area to give loyal customers space to watch their monitor games and scratch off their instant tickets.
This is the biggest winning ticket sold at the store since it joined the Lottery retailer network in 2019. In January and February, it also sold $10,421, $9,577 and $5,331 winning Racetrax tickets. In 2024 and 2023, Stoko’s sold two $25,000-winning Pick 5 tickets. Pick 4 players won one $5,000 prize in 2025 and 18 $5,000 prizes in 2024. Those winning tickets just keep on coming!
