The man who won the lottery 14 times
The man who won the lottery fourteen times
A corrupt Romanian economist used the lottery to win millions around the globe.
Note: This version is the complete version of a 2-part series. Part one already? You can skip to part 2 by clicking here For an audio version, scroll down to end of post
A janky ball machine from the Virginia State Lottery headquarters spit six winning numbers live to television just after 11 on February 15, 1992: 8... 11... 13,... 15... 15... 15... 19... 20.
Officials would soon discover that one "person” had won not only the $27.036,142 jackpot but 6 second prizes,132 third prizes, 135k minor prize, and an additional $900k in combined value.
Next came the bizarrest and most unlikely lottery story ever told. This involved thousands of foreign investors, many complex computer systems, an mathematical genius, and the management of the entire operation from another side of the globe.
This is the story behind the man who "gamed” the lottery by buying every combination.
Romania was suffering from Communist oppression at that time. Mandel was left with a salary of 360 lei ($10 US) per month. He needed a way "to get some serious money quickly," he explained to Planet Money.
Many Romanians who found themselves in Mandel's predicament were forced to live criminal lives. But Mandel, a self-described "philosopher-mathematician," saw another way out: The lottery.Let's take a step back here: What kind of idiot banks on winning the lottery? The odds of winning an Olympic gold medal are much higher if you have identical quintuplets and/or get crushed by the vending machine.
Mandel wasn't just a guy. He was a natural at numbers. He spent every spare moment analyzing the theoretical probability papers of Leonardo Fibonacci (13th-century mathematician). He developed a "number picking algorithm" after years of study based upon a method he called "combinatorial condensation."
He said that he is a weekend mathematician but not an accountant, which he later admitted to a Romanian publication. "But mathematics applied correctly can guarantee a good fortune."
Here's how it worked.
One in 13983,816 was the chance that a player would win a 49-ball lotto if he selected 6 numbers. He could win if he picked 15 numbers, which required him to buy 5,005 lottery games -- one for every possible combination. His odds of winning were 1 in 2,794. Mandel claimed that his algorithm could reduce the 5,005 combinations to just 569.
If 6 of his 15 numbers fall among his picks, he would be guaranteed to win at most a 2nd prize as well as hundreds of smaller prizes. He'd also have a 1/10 chance of winning the grand prix.
Mandel joined 4 friends and bought 228 tickets each.
Miraculously and with a lot more luck, he won first prize of 72.783 lei. That's about US $2k, or $16.8k adjusted by inflation. After all expenses, he left with enough cash to bribe foreign ministry officials in order to flee Romania and start a new life.
Make winning the lottery a business
After spending four years traveling around Europe, Mandel arrived in Australia to begin a new life and play the lottery in a completely different way.
The typical lottery involves a random selection of numbers (say, 1-50). If they match, you win. Your chances of winning depend on how many combinations you can make of these numbers. This is often in the millions.
Mandel spotted a pattern: The jackpot in certain lottos could be more than three times as much as the price of purchasing each combination.
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