If you are a regular lottery player, then you know that sometimes it is simply easier to purchase a quick pick ticket than to spend the time needed to select your own numbers. After all, quick picks were first brought out to make playing the lottery more straightforward and to make buying a ticket quicker. Thankfully, time has shown that playing by using a quick pick is not a bad thing because there are quite a few millionaires today who owe their fortunes to playing using this convenient lottery feature. In this article, we will look at a few quick pick lottery winners (in no particular order) and see how they became winners—by not even choosing their own numbers.
First Things First: What is a Quick Pick?
While we are almost positive that there is no one playing the lottery (or visiting a website all about the lottery for that matter) that does not know what a quick pick is, we thought it best to start off with stating the obvious—what quick pick is all about.
Quick picks, lucky dips, or fast plays are all essentially the same thing. This is an extra added to a lottery game that can be used when purchasing a lottery ticket and removes the job of selecting which numbers to play from you, the player. Instead, you hand over this task to a random number generator (RNG). The RNGs employed by different lottery operators are all programmed to ensure that they work entirely randomly, thus making sure that whatever numbers the quick pick decides on are wholly random and will not easily match the numbers given to another player.
Now that you know what this lottery function is all about, let's look at some lottery winners that won by purchasing a lottery quick pick ticket.
Joe Katalinic – The Retired Fisherman
In 2019, Joe Katalinic was living a simple life as a retired fisherman in Richmond, Canada. At 84 years of age, Joe liked the quiet life and never got up to any trouble. One thing that Joe did do, however, was play the lottery. For years, Joe was a regular player of the national Lotto Max lottery game and usually bypassed the option to play using a quick pick—preferring to select his own numbers to play with rather than leaving it up to an algorithm.
Unusually, however, when purchasing a ticket for the July 26, 2019, draw, Joe decided to buy a quick pick ticket instead. This change to his usual lottery routine was apparently all Joe needed. Amazingly, he became the winner of the $60 million jackpot. Joe admits that when he saw the amount that he had won, he went slightly crazy. However, true to his usual attitude, he continued life as he usually would and even took his time in cashing in his winning ticket.
Rick Knudsen – The Even Player
On August 22, 2014, the Mega Millions jackpot reached a fantastic amount of $180 million. However, for one player, this did not mean much. Rick Knudsen—a RWC Building Products branch manager from California—was not a regular lottery player by any means. In fact, Rick usually only played the lottery about five times in the space of a year. However, after two days of purchases at numerous stores resulted in him paying exact amounts every time (meaning no change was needed), Rick started to feel that something was amiss.
This superstition continued to nag at him until he relented and purchased $10 worth of quick picks for the draw. However, after pushing the whole thing from his mind and going on vacation with his family, Rick thought nothing more of it—until his sister called saying that the winning Mega Millions ticket was sold in Calimesa, the exact place Rick lived and bought his ticket. Unbelieving, Rick checked his tickets and found that one of his quick picks was indeed the lucky winner of the $180 million jackpot. Rick quickly announced that he would be taking the lump sum of $107 million (before tax) and would be enjoying life with his grandchildren and children.
Manuel Franco – The Young Millionaire
You may have heard of Manuel Franco before. In 2019 he was your average young 24-year-old who was battling to save just $1,000 in his bank account. However, as a regular player of the US Powerball, Franco made sure that he purchased tickets for the March 27 draw—which boasted a ridiculous jackpot of $768 million.
Amazingly, out of $10 worth of quick pick tickets, one of the tickets purchased was the sole winner of the massive jackpot. This outstanding win made Franco the second-biggest Powerball winner in history and rocketed him to millionaire status quicker than he could ever imagine. As expected, he selected to receive his winnings in the form of a cash lump sum and pocketed $326 million after taxes.
Matthew Good – The Hiding Helper
Matthew Good was one of two lucky winners of the $587.5 million jackpot paid out by the US Powerball on November 28, 2012. After purchasing $10 worth of lottery tickets, Matthew put the quick picks in the sun visor of his car and forgot about them until the day after the draw. Eventually, he remembered to check them and was shocked to see that he had won the jackpot.
After splitting his prize with the other winner and choosing to take a cash lump sum, Matthew collected a $136.5 million prize. This was not, however, before Matthew made every effort to remain anonymous—a feat not possible in the state of Arizona. Matthew eventually did speak to the press and shared his plans to set up a charity that would use the money to help those less fortunate than him and his wife.
Conclusion
As you can see, it is entirely possible to become an overnight millionaire using a ticket that you had no hand in choosing. This is the beauty of quick pick tickets and is one of the most persuasive arguments in favour of quick picks when it comes to the never-ending battle of quick picks vs. personal number selection. The winners above are living testaments to the fact that it is possible to win while still making use of this handy lottery feature. So, get out there and grab yourself a ticket—it may just be the ticket we all wish we were holding during the next big draw.
