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Hit the jackpot 14 times with math: The story of Stefan Mandel

The Romanian mathematician Stefan Mandel has won the lottery 14 times. His secret is not luck, but calculation: He made a name for himself with his jackpot system, which brought him the highest winnings in the lotteries.

His simple formula for success was to bet on any combination of numbers for a guaranteed win. This was possible with the help of enough capital, the automated filling in of lottery tickets, the right lottery rules and a sufficient jackpot amount.

Since the rules and probability of winning have changed in the meantime, the procedure can no longer be used today. The story of Stefan Mandel is still exciting and fascinating, because every lottery player dreams of winning the jackpot with a sure “trick”.

Who is Stefan Mandel?

Stefan Mandel was born in 1934 in Romania, which at the time had a communist government. With the takeover of power by the Romanian Communist Party (RKP, Romanian PCR), politics has become increasingly Stalinist. The death of Stalin in 1953 brought a change in national communism and in 1965 finally the dictatorship under Nicolae Ceaușescu. In short, and to put it mildly, Stefan Mandel grew up in a time marked by popular poverty.

Almond has a meager income as an economist for the state-owned mining company and is looking for an honest way of increasing his income. He deals with the state lottery. He wants to find a way to get a guaranteed profit. With an algorithm and three friends as additional investors, the plan is in place and the four of them manage to crack the jackpot.

Stefan Mandel uses his share of the profit to emigrate as a native Jew to Israel, where he starts a family. But after a few years he moved on to Australia with his wife and children, where he settled and obtained citizenship. In Australia, Mandel founds a company to continue to deal systematically with lotteries.

For several years, Mandel played with his company and helpers in lotteries in Australia and the Commonwealth of Nations. This way he legally wins 12 jackpots. However, the amendment of the lottery laws prevents further success, so that Stefan Mandel continues to orientate himself internationally.

In the USA he finds what he is looking for and determines a suitable lottery in the state of Virginia. With appropriate preparation, he succeeds in his greatest coup, a jackpot win of US $ 27 million. Thanks to further prizes in lower price ranges, the total is more than $ 30 million.

Stefan Mandel moves his residence to the island republic of Vanuatu in the South Pacific off the coast of Australia and withdraws from the lottery business.

Stefan Mandel's first lottery win in Romania

The odds of winning the lottery are one in a million, it is often said. If you look closely, the probability of a maximum win in the German Lotto 6 out of 49 is, for example, 1 in 139,838,160. But there is a very simple method to increase the chances: You play several combinations of numbers at the same time in one draw. Whoever wants to win the jackpot “only” has to bet on all winning opportunities at the same time.

This is exactly how Stefan Mandel thought in Romania in the 1950s. For five years he did calculations and studied scripts and formulas in the library. He was particularly fond of the Italian mathematician Fibonacci. At the age of 24, Mandel found the solution: a way to hit at least 5 of the 6 winning numbers in the Romanian lottery with certainty.

He decides to commit to 15 winning numbers. This increases his chances of winning from 1 in around 14 million to 1 in 2,794. The problem: In order to cover these 15 numbers, he would have to fill out 5,005 different game slips, for which he lacks the capital. Almond earns 360 leu a month, which at the time corresponds to around 10 US dollars and is just enough for a good pair of shoes.

Stefan Mandel develops an algorithm that condenses the winning combinations and thus reduces the number to just 569 individual lottery games. Mandel cannot afford that alone either, and he wins three friends for the cause. Together they put them together and buy the necessary tickets. Your chances are good to win second prize and hundreds of other small prizes. With a probability of 1 in 10, you are guaranteed the jackpot.

It comes as you wish and with a bit of luck you will actually hit all six winning numbers and hit the jackpot. They share the winnings of 72,783 Leu, which corresponds to 18 annual salaries!

Stefan Mandel as the jackpot king in Australia

Stefan Mandel fulfills a dream with his share of the profit and emigrates. After a short stay in Israel, he settled in Australia and obtained citizenship there. He wants to continue to implement his strategy on a large scale and is founding a company for this purpose. Through his citizenship all countries of the British Commonwealth of Nations, to which Australia belongs at the time, are open to him.

The first hurdle that Mandel's company overcomes is completing the game slips. Once he has calculated all the necessary number combinations with the help of a computer, the computer automatically prints out the necessary tickets.

In order to cover the costs of the games, Stefan Mandel recruits investors who advance the money to his company. After winning the jackpot, you will receive the sum back including a bonus.

The next hurdle is to find a suitable lottery. This must allow the submission of the printed game slips, have the appropriate chances of winning and have a correspondingly large jackpot. A kind of cat-and-mouse game begins over several years: Mandel wins a jackpot with his company and a team, the lottery changes the rules, Mandel finds a way out and the whole thing starts all over again.

The lotteries initially forbid a player to bet on all possible combinations of numbers. Mandel's solution is to hire five different middlemen to do this. When that is also declared illegal, Mandel buys the games as a company, which is still allowed.

In this way, Stefan Mandel manages to crack the jackpot of a lottery 12 times in Australia. At this point in time he had a total of 13 lottery wins. But then he can no longer find a suitable lottery due to the many rule changes.

The Lotto Coup in Virginia, USA

But Stefan Mandel does not give up and is internationally oriented. He is particularly interested in the USA, with its many state lotteries in the individual states, and he begins to study them individually to determine which lottery might be suitable.

After many calculations and long research, Stefan Mandel selects the US state of Virginia. The lottery there shows 7.1 million possible winning combinations. Almond is still waiting for the right time. The jackpot must first increase so that in the event of a split win it has a sufficiently large share.

In 1992, when the jackpot topped the $ 25 million mark, the time had come. Stefan Mandel's plan is in motion. His company prints all of the 7 million tickets in Australia and ships them to the United States. The postage alone is $ 60,000! In advance, Mandel negotiated deals with acceptance points, so that the millions of tickets arrive at many points and are paid for by check.

It's like in a film with a sophisticated robbery or break-in that a mastermind has come up with, only that everything here is legal and legal. On the evening before the drawing, Stefan Mandel is certain: he will win the jackpot, six prizes in the second prize class, 132 in the third prize class and thousands more of the small prizes.

The total winnings are more than $ 30 million including the jackpot of $ 27 million. There is no other grand prize winner in the draw, so all Almond has to do is share with his team and investors. 2,500 donors in Australia have advanced US $ 2,500 each, so that US $ 6,250,000 will flow back to them alone.

Doubts about the legality of the profit

For a brief moment the jackpot win hangs in the balance. Since it is an international action with a foreign company, the FBI and the CIA are investigating Stefan Mandel and his helpers to determine whether it is fraud, money laundering or other criminal activity.

Virginia State Lottery Commissioner Kenneth W. Thorson also expresses suspicion and initiates a review. Ultimately, however, he certifies that Mandel and his team acted lawfully and arranges for the winnings to be paid out.

He praised Stefan Mandel and his helpers for their inventive talent as well as their dedication and perseverance in the matter and at the same time hopes that Mandel will not become a repeat offender. A change in the lottery laws seals this and prevents another such coup.

Where and how does Stefan Mandel live today?

The Virginia Jackpot is paid out as 20 annual payments of $ 1.03 million each. Stefan Mandel takes a "consultancy fee" of 1.7 million US dollars and then sells the right to annual payments to an American insurance company for around 14 million US dollars. After spending $ 5.5 million and other costs, he has around half of that.

After a total of 14 jackpot wins, Stefan Mandel withdraws from the lottery business and relocates to the Pacific island of Vanuatu. His entrepreneurial spirit persists, however, and he re-establishes a company that asks donors for financial support in buying territory on the island.

In 1995 Stefan Mandel declared bankruptcy and tried to build up a fortune again through business with investments. To do this, Mandel is returning to Israel, but the stock exchange regulator there is investigating him as a businessman. In 2002 he pays bail and leaves his wife and children in Israel when he flees to London. During his stay in the UK, he was sentenced in Israel to a fine of US $ 29,000 and ten months in prison in his absence. The annex states that he and his business partners have not transparently informed their investors about the actual chances of winning.

Stefan Mandel successfully challenged a court ruling against him in 2020 (Photo: Stefan Mandel).

Mandel appealed the judgment several times from abroad, but was rejected because it was considered to be volatile. However, the second chairman of the Supreme Court confirmed that Stefan Mandel should not have been convicted in absentia.

In 2020, Stefan Mandel refuses to do charitable work instead of imprisonment. He wants to present new evidence on site in Israel with his lawyer. The court offers him 30 days of immunity to reopen the process. Later that year, the dispute was settled without Stefan Mandel having to serve a prison sentence.

Does Stefan Mandel's strategy still work today?

First of all, the disappointing and short answer: unfortunately no! Almond's strategy required several requirements to work.

The guaranteed jackpot win must cover all costs, i.e. the price for all game tickets, the shipping of the tickets and the remuneration of the helpers.

In addition, the jackpot must be so large that even in the case of a multiple split win (multiple winners with the same combinations) there is no loss due to the high costs.

The rules of the lottery must not prohibit the procedure, such as the automated generation of tickets, submission by intermediaries or playing all possible combinations per se.

This also makes it clear why Stefan Mandel's strategy is no longer working out today. The lotteries have changed their rules and the draws. Many lotteries have odds of 1 in several million for the jackpot. In many cases it is no longer allowed to play all possible combinations of numbers. With such chances of winning, a guaranteed jackpot would also devour astronomical costs.

Since all lotteries have now adjusted their rules and conditions accordingly, Stefan Mandel remains the only player who has succeeded in winning the jackpot with multiple tickets by betting on all possible combinations.

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