[Music]
so you know what they say
when the odds of something happening are
really low
it's like winning the lottery well what
would you say if i told you that one man
over the course of 30 years actually did
win the lottery
14 times in a row sounds improbable
but this is the real life story of a
mathematical genius
stephen mandel
it all began in the 1960s when a poor
romanian accountant
was trying to make ends meet and feed
his family
his salary was so low that he was
getting desperate
living basically on 88 dollars a month
was torture
mandel couldn't find a job with a higher
pay at the time
and resorting to illegal activities was
against his moral code
so he came up with a solution that
perhaps only he could think of
lottery now for most people that would
be lunacy
i mean what chance do you have one in a
million i don't think i'll surprise you
if i say it might be
even less than that depending on the
number of tickets distributed
winning combinations and some other
factors he called himself a weekend
mathematician
who's fascinated with numbers and it
showed
he spent every minute he had off work
and family life
analyzing papers on math and working on
his own
algorithm and finally after several
years
it was ready mandel called the result of
his research
combinatorial condensation he didn't
want to disclose the method
but he claimed that in a lottery with
six total winning numbers
he could accurately predict five of them
that brought the probability of winning
the lottery from one in several million
to one in several thousand a drastic
drop don't you agree
using his algorithm and having gained
support of his friends and relatives
mandel managed to buy huge quantities of
tickets
with numbers that were most likely to
win and the risk
paid off he won the first prize which
was about
thousand dollars paid off his debts to
everyone who helped him
and still benefited quite a lot his net
profit was four grand
enough to start a new life and that's
exactly what he did
mandel packed his family stuff and went
to western europe
where he moved from place to place for
four years
such a lifestyle is tiring when you're
not alone though he finally settled in
australia
quite a far cry from europe huh there he
decided to continue his research into
the lottery business
and succeeded you see when he earned his
australian citizenship
he got access to every commonwealth
resource available for anyone with this
status
and that meant he could take part in the
uk lottery system
which happened to me much less
complicated than the romanian one he
cracked before
so he sat down took a good long look at
the system
and after some time got an idea mandel
realized that
in order to win every time he only
needed to buy
all the number combinations there were
sounds crazy i know
but even so he made it work with a very
deliberate solution
his plan included six steps first he
would
calculate the total number of
combinations possible in any given
lottery
for example when we had to pick six
numbers from one to forty
would have three million eight hundred
thirty eight thousand three hundred
eighty combinations
yeah count them yourself if you don't
believe me
second he would find lotteries where the
jackpot was at least three times as big
as the number of combinations
this was a requirement because otherwise
he would either win nothing at all
or even lose money you'll see why in a
few moments
third he'd raise money to buy every
single combination
this was the toughest part of all he
would convince people his method worked
and persuade them to sponsor his venture
by buying as many lottery tickets as
they could afford
and sending them to him he promised to
share the winnings
among the investors and himself so after
a while
his ideas got popular enough to attract
hundreds of backers willing to win some
part of the jackpot
[Music]
fourth he would print out literally
millions of tickets
doing this he ensured that every
possible winning combination would be
somewhere among those millions
and that in its turn made mandel a
multiple winner of every lottery there
was
not only did he win the jackpot but he
also took the second
third and other minor prizes
fifth having printed out the tickets he
would deliver them to the official
dealers
they had no choice but to accept the
tons of paper mandel hauled to them
because however crazy it sounds the
whole operation was legal
the british commonwealth and australian
authorities just couldn't believe
anyone would be so bold as to do
something like this
stefan mandel was one of a kind and he
probably knew it himself
and finally the sixth step was to take
the prize
and this one is exactly why he needed
the jackpot to be three times the number
of possible combinations
you see after winning mandel had to pay
his investors their due
that meant the more backers he had and
the more they paid
the more money he had to cough up after
winning the lottery
but that wasn't all since mandel also
had other costs to pay
including printing and logistics so
eventually
he would be left with not a very
astonishing sum on his hands
if the jackpot had been smaller he would
have probably found himself with
less money than he had before the whole
affair hence the prize amount
the plan was incredibly simple come to
think of it but at the same time it
needed a lot of effort
stefan mandel worked day and night to
make it come true
and over the years he succeeded in
creating what he called
a lotto syndicate a network of hundreds
of investors who believed in his method
and were more than willing to help with
the 1980s
came the computer era and mandel was
more than happy to embrace new
technology
he bought several computers and a dozen
printers that ran
on an algorithm he created and filling
out the combinations became
easy peasy by the end of the decade
he and his syndicate managed to win 12
lotteries across
australia and the uk but such a scheme
couldn't have gone
unnoticed although perfectly legal it
bothered the authorities that one person
could perform such a trick
so the lottery laws were changed twice
in australia
first they prohibited printing tickets
at home
now you had to buy them firsthand from a
store and
then banned purchasing them in bulk
that made mandel look to the west
despite his many successes
they brought modest amounts of money
what mandel wanted now
was to make headlines all over the world
so we set his sights on the virginia
lottery in the us
it was 1992 and the jackpot was more
than three times larger than the number
of combinations
27 million against approximately 7
million tickets
it was exactly what he needed given
credit for his previous achievements
he quickly gained support of over twenty
five hundred investors
each of them paying about three thousand
dollars to bulk purchase
all the combinations then he printed all
those tickets at his base of operations
back in sydney
and shipped the bulk to the us that's
where the big game started
hired couriers worked tirelessly all
around the state
paying for tickets at stores and
cashiers checks worth ten thousand
dollars each
they were short on time but that wasn't
the big trouble
the one that made mandel bite on his
nails was that just hours before the
deadline for entry
one of the stores that bought tickets in
ball became overwhelmed and stopped its
operation
as a result out of 7.1 million tickets
bought by mandel syndicate
only 5.5 million were processed leaving
too much to chance
there was nothing he could do to ensure
his victory and he only had to hope
none of those missing 1.6 million
combinations were winning
on february 15 1992 the moment of truth
came
the final draw on live television
mendel's team were frantically rifling
through the combinations to see whether
one of them was the winner
and at last a triumphant cry they'd won
the lotto syndicate hit not only the
jackpot but also the second and
third prizes along with dozens of minor
ones
their overall winnings amounting to
about 30 million dollars
it was the greatest victory of mandel's
venture yet and it did make
international headlines just like he
wanted
but as we know all too well money spoils
while stefan mandel himself became a
millionaire
his investors received only a meager
compensation for what they had spent
and they couldn't even sue him for not
carrying out his obligations
because technically he did on a larger
scale
mandel's actions caused the u.s
authorities to change the lottery rules
so no one would ever repeat his stock
that made him the first and last
he didn't really stop pursuing his elf
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