Man who won lottery 14 times explains simple math he used to beat the system

If you're the sort of person who's never even managed to win something at a school raffle, then this story is going to hurt a bit.

We've all discussed what we'd do if we ever got lucky and won the lottery - buy a house, a holiday home or two, go on a once in a lifetime holiday, and personally, I'd also save a lot and give some to charity.

But apparently, it's not all down to 'luck,' with one man having won the lottery an eye-watering 14 times. The question is, how on earth did he do it?

Well, according to Stefan Mandel, it wasn't even that hard - the Romanian-Australian economist putting it down to 'simple math'.

*Immediately wishes I'd not given up on math as soon as I turned 16.*

With the help of a group of investors and a syndicate called the International Lotto Fund, Mandel targeted 14 lotteries around the world.

In an interview shared to YouTube, Mandel said: "Theoretically, anybody can buy all the possible combinations. Any high school boy or girl can calculate those combinations.

"Nobody has ever developed a logistical system to lodge such a large amount of play slips.

"We were the only winners and that was it."

Pixabay

Targeting a lottery in the state of Virginia in the United States, Mandel estimated that they had 7,059,052 to choose from, due to state rules about picking six numbers between one and 44.

Apparently these were pretty good odds.

Virginia also allows players to print their tickets at home, rather than purchasing them from a cashier.

With thirty computers on hand, Mandel and his team printed out every ticket imaginable.

It was in February 1992 that Mandel and his team scooped $900,000 in additional prizes for the tickets that placed second, third, fourth and so on.

This was in addition to the $27 million jackpot prize, of course.

Not a bad payday at all.

Pixabay

Fourteen international agencies, including the CIA and the FBI, investigated Mandel and the ILF for wrongdoing, but they were cleared.

Mandel would later declare bankruptcy in 1995, before spending the next decade running various investment schemes.

One of these schemes nearly landed him with a jail sentence in Israel, but the conviction was overturned and Mandel never spent a day behind bars.

Currently, Mandel spends his time in a beach on a remote tropical island off the coast of Australia, having declared himself 'retired from the lottery'.

To this day, he's not revealed the exact algorithm that he and his team used to crack the system, telling a reporter in 1992: "That would be like Coca-Cola revealing their recipe."