An Economist Won The Lottery 14 Times By Buying Every Number Combination | Planet Money | NPR

Buying a lottery ticket is a bad deal. The odds are against you, even with a giant pot. But one guy figured out how to flip the odds in his favor... fourteen times.

In the 1950s, Stefan Mandel won the Romanian lottery twice.

And then he took his earnings, packed his bags and settled in Australia, where he won the lottery twelve more times. Yes, you read that correctly. Twelve.

So, how'd this math whiz beat the system?

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[passdasalt]

I've got a system where I never win the lotto, guaranteed. I'm having trouble looking for investors though.

[Mjvella]

Everything about this, the functionary sashes, the sad slice of bread "sandwich", the style choices, is why I love NPR.

[NancyLebovitz]

This reminds me of the bit from Teller that sometimes the magic trick is that someone put in more work than any sensible person would expect.

[DanielFlores]

There was no math in this video at all, I feel misled.

[SierraSierraFoxtrot]

It's a bit misleading to imply Mandel *lives* on a tropical island.

He's *stuck* on Vanuatu because the securities authority in Israel convicted him in absentia of a not filing a prospectus and of fleeing from custody.
The first charge is true, but it was selective prosecution by all accounts.
The second charge is probably made up, since he voluntarily returned to Israel to be interrogated and then they claimed he tried to escape from their offices when according to him they told him he was not under arrest and he walked out to get lunch.

[IcemanJuice]

The thing is... i don’t understand how there weren’t any duplicates sold of the tickets he bought?

[BinocularRivalry]

This is the NPR version of Drunk History.

Also, this needs to be made into a movie.

[ubuntuposix]

"Having no money" sounds good if he had a his own home, tv, friends who lend him a lot of money..

[jimsmith]

It is hearing about people like him that gives me hope for the human race. Makes me feel proud to be a Human being. That feisty and devious side of us that says "watch this!"

[TheRausing]

There’s something very fishy about this whole story. I’ve researched and every article I’ve found on the topic just leads you on a trail of other vague articles from which they copied, always leading back to some dodgy website proporting to give tips and strategies on how to win the lottery. I can’t find anything solid on this guy. The facts presented in this video do not, in my opinion, have a solid grounding until you provide your resources. Please provide a link to the article from which you most likely got every detail from.

[langemusik]

this is one kind of idea lots of people have, but most dismiss this because it couldnt possible ever work. but then there's always that one guy...

[jpe]

Usually the applicable phrase is: “The lottery is a tax on people who don’t understand mathematics.”
But in Stephan’s case the phrase was: “The lottery can be a windfall for those who understand mathematics well enough to guarantee a win.”
Of course he wasn’t *guaranteed* a win in Romania, and in Virginia there was a real chance that he could end up splitting the pot with several other winners (and also there was a real chance that the state of Virginia would refuse to pay and the courts would back them up).

[alvinnguyen]

He basically waited til the jackpot was at a level where if he bought all the combinations he would be guaranteed a win.

[spencert]

combinatorial condensation is not a real thing. I like how they just gloss over that like oh yeah he figured out how to predict the first 5 numbers but then he just stopped using that for some reason. If the Romanian lottery is like the other lotteries (as implied) it’s not possible to the predict numbers no matter how many math papers you read. Also if you predicted 5 of the 6 numbers the number of combinations would be much less than 1000.

[weareorigin]

Rest of humanity needs to be on this guy's logic level.

[seanwebb]

I’m oddly attracted to two of these men.

[algore]

Lol playing a Polka styled version of the Tetris theme in the background 0:47 -1:05

[ryanvoogjarv]

I missed how exactly this scheme worked. Is it just that, when the prize pot for a lottery gets big enough, the expected return on any ticket for that draw becomes positive?

Then you'd be able to buy enough tickets to cover all the possible number combinations, such that the expected return becomes guaranteed (assuming no split pot)?

[notthatyouasked]

Massachusetts used to have a lottery game with a "push down" feature, meaning that if no one won the big prize for a long time, they redistributed a lot of that money to the lesser prizes. Well it turns out that there are a bunch of people in Mass. who are good at math, so whenever the "push down" feature happened, ticket sales skyrocketed and a few key players/"investors" got rich. The game has since been terminated. I think they now have a law limiting individuals to purchase not more than 10, 000 tickets for any draw.

[retrovelcro]

So, dude left his family for the life of Lotto?