Are Your Chances of Winning the Lottery Better With Quick Picks?

Pick your own or quick picks?

Quick picks are commonly misunderstood.

They are also a hugely popular (if slightly lazy) way to play the lottery.

And a question today hits on the old ‘quick pick vs own numbers’ debate of whether your chances of winning are better with quick picks.

[Q] “I’m worried about a computer randomly picking numbers for me. What are the odds of using quick pick selections rather than hand picking?”

So let’s get into what quick picks are and dispel some myths.

What Is a Quick Pick Lottery Ticket?

A quick pick lottery ticket is where the lottery terminal randomly chooses the numbers for you.

To play this way you have to specifically mark the quick pick option on your playslip. Otherwise you’ll be picking your own numbers.

How Are Quick Pick Lottery Numbers Generated?

Quick pick lottery numbers are generated using a random number generator by the lottery terminal.

Exactly how the random number generation works is not openly discussed by the lottery hardware manufacturers. It’s likely to be ‘pseudo random’ rather than the more expensive approach used by computer based draw machines (see how are lottery numbers picked and the video on YouTube here).

Which is good enough for the purpose.

And as Jeffrey Miecznikowski, Associate Professor at the University at Buffalo confirms the “data strongly suggest that the Powerball computers are generating combinations with equal probability and thus at random”.

So yes, quick pick is really random and not rigged in any way (which would be pointless!).

Are Quick Picks Better Than Picking Your Own Numbers?

When you play using a quick pick you have two random events going on. The selection of your numbers AND the lottery draw itself.

Which in pure mathematical terms* makes no difference whatsoever!

I know this ‘feels’ like two moving targets to some people. But think of it like rolling a dice. If you get a computer to randomly pick which number (1 to 6) you’re going to guess. Then what are the odds of being right?

It’s still going to be 1 in 6, right? The dice didn’t change due to the way you picked. So it doesn’t matter if you pick the number or a computer randomly generates it.

What Are the Odds of Winning the Lottery With Quick Picks?

If we look at this just from a math point of view* – every ball in the lottery has exactly the same odds of being drawn. Therefore every set of numbers in a lottery draw has exactly the same chance of being drawn. So your odds of winning with quick picks are no different than picking your own.

[Also see the odds of winning the lottery if you play every week]

So it does not matter how your numbers were selected, they are just as good as everybody elses numbers.

Whether you like pulling numbers out of a washing machine full of numbered ping pong balls. Picking ages of your favorite family members. Or counting how many times your horse taps his foot. Your chances of winning the lottery are just as good as everybody elses (again, in pure math terms*).

So use quick picks if you like, or if you are in a rush. As they really aren’t that bad (but read below). There is however the possibility that the computer gives you a set of ‘popular numbers’ – which means you are more likely to share a jackpot with multiple other winners if you do win it. But more on that in my free tips course.

Do Quick Picks Ever Win the Lottery

Quick picks do win the lottery on a regular basis. How the ticket was played is occasionally mentioned in winners press releases.

How Often Do Quick Picks Win?

But the real question is whether they win the jackpot out of proportion to the number of quick picks tickets bought (i.e. more or less than you would expect).

Lottery companies don’t generally provide this data. So it’s not possible to state with absolute certainty. But there’s no reason to believe that quick picks win any less than expected, based on the number of people who play that way.

* Why Only In Pure Math Terms?

The question was originally supposed to address people thinking in terms of the math involved (i.e. for multiple random events happening). That didn’t really cover things properly for those wanting to know is it better to pick your own lottery numbers or let the machine do it?

So here goes…

Lottery draw machines are (mostly) mechanical devices. They are designed to be ‘random enough’. Because making something truly perfectly random is not only extremely difficult. It’s also pretty much impossible to prove you achieved it!

Think about it – how many test draws do you need to run to prove with 100% certainty that a lottery draw machine is ‘perfectly random’?

We’re talking about games with many millions of combinations here. So it rapidly becomes impractical to even run enough tests. Even if you could run one test per minute, just 1 million test draws would take nearly TWO YEARS (that’s running 24 hours a day)!

And 1 million draws is nowhere near enough to prove this anyway. Even 100 times that (um, 200 years now!) is only starting to become useful, and nowhere near proving it 100% for certain.

There’s also another problem with running tests. If you run millions of tests on a machine, think of the wear and tear on that machine, and the lottery balls. It’s going to break before you prove what you need to prove! So it will need maintaining and repairing as you go.

But if you change something in your test, doesn’t that invalidate your test? So technically you would need to start over again wouldn’t you?

All of which means – lottery machines are NOT perfect. The lottery companies consider them to be ‘random enough’. But this does, technically, leave some wiggle room. It is in theory possible (perhaps even likely) that mechanical bias exists. Whether that it is big enough to be trackable and therefore useful is a whole different story of course.

So Is Quick Pick Better or Is It Better To Pick Your Own Lottery Numbers?

Well, it means that picking your own numbers can be better. If you are picking the right way and for the right reasons.

But there is also an awful lot of misleading and bad advice out there on how to pick your numbers. So are quick picks better than picking numbers using terrible advice – quite possibly!

So be careful which advice you choose to trust folks.

23 Comments so far ↓

  • Robert

    Some years ago I purchased a quick play lotto ticket. After the drawing, when I checked the ticket, I realized that the 2 sets of numbers on the ticket were exactly the same. Does this happen very often?

  • Desmond Bradley

    Hi ! There is one problem about random draws. It takes forever for each number to draw and equal the times drawn. Study of past draws show that many numbers repeat within the last ten draws and quickpicks can often not have these numbers. So much for randomness. There are other things that show variations which indicate better chance than quickpicks.

  • Ken

    When a Illinois lottery quick pick is generated. Does the lottery machine pick the numbers and report them to the main lottery server, or does the lottery machine communicate with the main lottery server to get the numbers?

  • Arjun

    I always play with 10, 23, 24, 30, 33 & 33

    I have been playing these numbers for a while but since I have 33 twice, I feel like the probability of it happening is much less. Though I’d admit I play these numbers because I don’t want to be in a situation where these numbers show up and I didn’t have a ticket! That’d suck!

  • Tyler

    In North Carolina, I’ve discovered that the “quick picks” are not really random numbers at all. Today, for example, I bought five tickets for the “cash 5” game, which is won by matching all five lottery numbers 1 to 39. My $5 ticket consisted of five sets of numbers ($1 each set). Two of the number sets are identical except for one number! This cannot be the result of a truly “random” selection. Something fishy is going on.

    • LG

      No, that’s actually just evidence that the system is working randomly 🙂

      If it was impossible for 2 very similar combinations to be generated like this then there would be something fishy going on.

    • Raul

      Well, it is more likely to see that happening in a ticket, than to win the jackpot. So anything is possible no matter how low the odds are, we wouldn’t be playing otherwise.

  • Nini

    That’s why I play one set of my own and one quick pick. It does not matter, if it is your day it is your day. Good luck all.

  • Ron

    In the 2 groups I play I have been asked “If I join the group can you Guarantee we will win?” and my answer is “no, but if you don’t play I Guarantee you won’t win”.

  • Rob

    I have to agree with Joe, that has actually happened to me. I didn’t play my numbers one week and I would have won money. It wasn’t a jackpot, but still was mad at myself. I will never do that again. I’ve always used quick picks and haven’t won hardly anything. I say use your numbers, they are yours for a reason!

    • LG

      Hey Rob,

      We’re just about verging on the realms of ‘superstition’ here. And lottery companies do like it when we get protective over numbers, because it means we play more often, i.e. “I can’t miss this week, it might be the week my numbers come up”. They’re well aware of the psychology and certainly wouldn’t do anything to harm the perception – why hurt your ticket sales? :-). It works really well for them when they decide to introduce an extra draw in the week too – “must play my numbers on Wednesday as well now, just in case…”.

      It doesn’t actually matter if you play the same numbers for 10 years straight, they are still (in mathematical terms*) just as likely to come up in the next draw as any other set of numbers. So sticking or changing really doesn’t make any difference.

      But if you like your numbers, by all means stick with them as there’s no real harm in it.

      It’s not playing at all that really hurts your chances 🙂

  • Joe

    Statistically I would agree that per-draw, your chances are equal with whichever numbers you use (whether you pick them, if you let the machine pick them).

    If you play regularly, though, I would think that it would be best to pick a set of numbers and stick with it. You can, again, pick them yourself or let the machine pick them, but once you have “your numbers” I think it makes sense to stick with them.

    Think of your numbers as a target, and the draw is the ‘dart’ … if you’re constantly moving the target around (changing numbers… random quick-pick each week), you’re relying on two random events (the draw and your numbers) to sync up each time. If you keep your numbers the same for each draw, your ‘target’ stays still, and only the weekly drawing numbers have to line up.

    I’m no mathematician, statistician, or even a great gambler, but this is just what makes sense to me. I could be completely wrong about it. But just imagine the sinking-feeling you’d get if your numbers from ‘last week’ won ‘this week’ and you had gone and changed them.

  • Thrifty

    Quick picks win a lot of the time. The lottery cannot manipulate which combinations you get with a quick pick, because lottery players buy their tickets at different times, days and places. Many players have won with a quick pick line.

    • Gary

      The only problem with quick picks is that the lottery terminal can only generate 20,000 losing combinations, before choosing the same losing combinations all over again.

      • LG

        Hi Gary

        20,000? Depends on the game – I mean there are nearly 14 million combinations for a 6 from 49 game.

        But even then, there’s no memory on the quick pick number generator – so it won’t cover all combinations before starting again, it can repeat at any time.

  • Henry Stanley

    I agree. But I often wonder as I buy my tickets a few days before, if this powerful computer could scan the numbers being picked by the public, and be able to avoid most numbers. I mean in more than 30 years of trying and still no decent winnings.

    • LG

      It would certainly be possible. The lottery companies could allocate combinations that had not already been picked to people buying a quick pick.

      After all, it would still be a fair draw as all combinations theoretically have the same chance of being drawn.

      The main reason they wouldn’t though is rollovers!

      Lottery companies love rollovers. Big jackpots create great publicity and sell a lot more tickets.

      It’s the only reason there are lottery games with insane odds. Look at the chances of winning Mega Millions! Hugely popular but not the game those players should be spending their money on.

    • Kate

      Yes, Henry I’ve thought the same thing too, and maybe easy pick is the way to go. Lol

  • Joe

    I agree. The quick pix is able to pick a more pseudorandom set of numbers than mere humans. Therefore as you say one is more likely to share any winnings if you choose your own numbers. Humans have great difficulty in choosing or recognizing such numbers. Great site – Joe

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