Featured Image Credit: RyanJLane/Getty Images
You’re statistically more likely to die being hit by a flying asteroid from space than you are winning the lottery.
However, one man blew those odds out of the water after he managed to ‘hack the system’ in order to win the lottery an unbelievable 14 times.
There’s roughly a one in 300 million chance of winning big on the lottery in the US, meaning that if you bought a ticket then you have a 0.00000034% chance of winning.
So how did one man bag the big cash a whopping 14 times? Well, what’s even more shocking, everything he did was completely legal.
Advert
Economist Stefan Mandel first won the lottery twice in his home country of Romania before going on to win a further 12 times after moving to Australia.
Although Mandel's method of winning was legal at the time, new laws have been put in place in both the US and Australia to make this way impossible now.
His method involved calculating the total number of combinations in the draw and finding lotteries where the jackpot is at least three times more than all of the possible combinations.
Then, Mandel raised money from investors in order to buy a ticket for each combination.
At the time, he was able to print the millions of tickets off at home, although now you can only get them printed from the store.
After winning the money, Mandel would pay out to his investors.
For example, after he won $1.3 million in 1987, he only actually pocketed $97,000 after paying his investors.
But it looks like this plan has paid off in the long run as Mandel now leads a quiet life on the South Pacific island of Vanuatu, which is an idyllic country in Oceania that is famed for its waterfalls and volcanoes.
Mandel seems to have been smart with his winnings, after many lottery winners reportedly go broke after blowing their cash on flash houses and fancy sportscars, as well as wasting it on things like gambling and extravagant trips.
Certified financial planner Robert Pagliarini has spoken out about a system that could help lottery winners to manage their new finances, recommending that they assemble a ‘financial triad’.
He explained: “This includes an attorney, a tax person, and a financial adviser. This financial dream team can help you make smart financial decisions and help you plan for the future. They can also help shield you from the media and from the onslaught of money requests from others.”
