Life as a Lottery Intern

For the Love of Money

When I wasn't on the road working promotional events, I was experiencing the magic of the Maryland Lottery from my cubical. And trust me, there was never a dull moment.

As an intern, I attended drawings, updated media directories, wrote news releases, pitched stories to local media outlets, produced scripts for commercials and developed communications plans.

The Cash Extravaganza Game Show was one of the biggest projects I was assigned. The show aired on WBAL-TV Channel 11 on July 16. Photo by Elizabeth Dow.

My favorite part of working at the Lottery was interacting with winners. Large jackpot winners ($50,000+) come to Headquarters to redeem their prizes, where they are escorted into the Winner's Longue and greeted by Lottery officials who present them with an oversized novelty check. There is nothing more uplifting than to see an average Marylander turn into a millionaire right before your eyes.

My job was to chat it up with the winners, get their stories and then pitch to the media. This usually meant writing a press release, but sometimes when the jackpot was unusually large or the winner was unusually enthusiastic, I got to produce video news releases. My biggest accomplishment was pitching a story about a Mega Millions winner to The Baltimore Sun. The story even ran with a color picture!