A mathematician has defied the odds to win the lottery a whopping 14 times without breaking a single law. How did he do it?
Romanian-born Australian Stefan Mandel used his affinity for numbers to create a near-perfect formula for his road to success.
While working as an economist in Romania, Stefan believed he could win second-prize win by using the five numbers his special formula provided. He then guessed the sixth digit.
Together with three friends, they won the top prize in Romania which back then was 72,783 leu - the equivalent of 18 times his salary.
He used the money, was able to leave Romania and settle in Australia with his young family.
Once he settled in Australia, he then fine-tuned his formula for the Australian game, which is much larger, with a team of people.
Due to the immensity of possible combinations in the Australian lottery, Stefan enlisted investors to help and he created somewhat of a lottery business.
All his helpers bought tickets from all over the country as Stefan hoped to purchase every ticket option available, giving him even more chances of winning the jackpot.
As soon as he won the big prize, he would distribute the money among his investors and helpers and start the cycle again.
With continued wins, he soon drew the attention of the Australian authorities, who began to grow suspicious.
Despite him not doing anything illegal, rules were brought in to try and stop him from continuing his winning run.
But the cunning mathematician kept finding ways around the new rules.
However, eventually, the crackdown became too hard for the lottery operation to keep on winning, which resulted in the Aussie citizen finally ending his pursuit of home glory and then focusing on the United States.
In the early 90s, there were 7.1 million possible number combinations in the Virginia lottery. He recruited 2,500 Australian investors to pitch in $2,500 each.
And in 1992, the lottery reached $27million and Mandel and his team bought every single ticket combination.
Their success continued and they secured a mammoth total in excess of $30million.
“I knew that I would win one first prize, six-second prizes, 132 third prizes, and thousands of minor prizes,” Mandel told Planet Money.
Virginia State Lottery commissioner Kenneth W. Thorson was suspicious after learning of Mandel’s operation, but eventually released the cash after an investigation, which involved the CIA and FBI, found the syndicate had done nothing wrong.
Now he lives on a remote tropical island off the coast of Australia, with no intention of ever playing the lottery again.
