For years, a Maryland dad followed the exact same lottery routine every single week. Twice a week, he played the same set of numbers in the Multi-Match lottery game. And like always, he usually scanned his ticket quickly to see if he had won anything.
But one small change completely altered his life.
According to PEOPLE, the man — who chose the nickname “Multi-Match Maniac” to stay anonymous — decided to manually check the winning numbers after the April 16 drawing instead of scanning the ticket like he normally did.
That decision led to a moment he could barely believe.
“I’m looking at the numbers and looking at my ticket. I thought, this can’t be true,” he recalled, as quoted by PEOPLE.
The numbers on his ticket matched perfectly: 02-06-08-12-29-38.
That exact combination earned him the game’s top jackpot prize of $570,000.