A superstitious woman won USD 50,000 (GBP 40,395) on the lottery after she bought ticket because her hand was itching.

Nurse Amber Marshall, 28, bought the scratch-off ticket in a rest break following the old saying that itchy hands mean money is coming your way.

But Amber – from Owings Mills, Maryland state, USA – was astonished when she found she had scooped a huge prize.

She said in a Maryland Lottery statement obtained by Newsflash on Thursday, 26th January: “It had been a long, crazy day made worse because my hand was itching. It just wouldn’t go away.

“I was on a break when I suddenly remembered that my mom once told me that an itchy hand meant money was coming my way.

“My first thought was the Lottery.”

After choosing a Money Rush USD 10 (GBP 8.08) ticket Amber then sat in her car to scratch it off.

She said: “When I saw the USD 50,000 [GBP 40,395] match, I was overcome with a feeling of relief.

“I was so happy that I started crying right there in the parking lot.”

She told lottery headquarters that the next thing she did was to call her mum and added: “We were both crying.”

Amber explained that she will use the prize money to pay her bills and invest in opening her own business which she had put on hold because of high costs.

She said: “Not having the bills to worry about will be nice, but being able to get so much closer to my goal of opening this new business is such a load off of my shoulders.”

The lottery said: “Amber’s winning ticket purchased from High’s #020 at 27 Railroad Avenue in [the city of ] Westminster closes out the USD 50,000 [GBP 40,395] prizes but there are still two USD 100,000 [GBP 80,772] top prizes in circulation along with more than 340,000 unclaimed prizes ranging from USD 10 [GBP 8.08] to USD 1,000 [GBP 807.72].”