GAITHERSBURG, MD — If a birth date is lucky, then by logic a man with two birth dates must be doubly lucky, right? That appears true for a 79-year-old Gaithersburg man who claimed a $1.9 million jackpot prize from the May 7 Multi-Match drawing.

A paperwork fluke gave the winner two birth dates when he was born in Louisiana in 1939. For most of his life, the Montgomery County resident used the erroneous April 23 date and only recently officially updated his vital records to reflect his actual April 21 birth date. The Maryland Lottery fan considers both dates lucky and plays them on a variety of games, including Multi-Match.

On May 7, his birth dates delivered a belated birthday gift. The six numbers in his string of lucky numbers matched the winning numbers, giving him the game's $1.9 million jackpot and ending the game's jackpot roll. He became the second Multi-Match jackpot winner of 2018. The lucky player discovered the astounding result the day after the drawing, when he returned home between work shifts.

"I was scanning the newspaper and flipped to the Lottery section first, and when I saw the numbers my eyes just grew bigger and bigger," he said. He immediately called his wife to share the news.

"When I told her how much we had won, at first she didn't believe me," he said.

The winning couple elected to take the prize's cash option, which totaled $1.45 million before taxes. The happy pair are planning to discuss the windfall with a financial adviser and may use the funds to pay off bills and donate to their church.

Their lucky ticket seller, Brighton Beer & Wine located at 225 Muddy Branch Road in Gaithersburg, is also a winner. The store earned a $1,900 bonus from the Lottery for selling the jackpot-winning ticket. The first jackpot hit in 2018 on Jan. 18 delivered a $2.85 million prize – the sixth-largest in the game's history – to an anonymous Prince George's County woman who bought her ticket at Coventry Way Exxon in Clinton. There's still time to buy tickets for the May 17 drawing, which carries a $550,000 jackpot. The cash option is $275,000.