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Infographic
The people who won the lottery by buying up the numbers
A handful of players really did beat the lottery, not by luck, but by buying almost every possible combination when the math was on their side.
14
Lotteries won by Stefan Mandel
7,059,052
Combinations in Virginia's 1992 game
~$27M
Virginia jackpot Mandel's group won
2,500+
Investors in his syndicate
How the strategy works
01
Find a lottery where the jackpot is bigger than the cost of every ticket
02
Raise money from investors to cover every combination
03
Print millions of tickets in advance, by hand or computer
04
Buy them all before the draw and hope nobody else wins too
Timeline
1960s
Stefan Mandel, a Romanian economist, works out a method to cut down how many tickets cover a winning set. He wins a Romanian lottery, then moves to Australia.
1980s
In Australia his syndicate wins over and over, until laws change to stop bulk buying.
Feb 1992
Virginia Lottery: about 7 million combinations at $1 each, jackpot near $27M. The group buys about 5 million tickets before time runs out, and still holds the winner.
2003–2005
Jerry and Marge Selbee, a retired Michigan couple, spot a loophole in Michigan's WinFall: when no one hit the jackpot, prizes rolled down to smaller wins. A group from MIT finds the same flaw in Massachusetts' Cash WinFall.
2012
After press reports, Massachusetts ends Cash WinFall. The Selbees' group reportedly won about $26M in prizes over nine years.
Why it can't work today: combinations to cover
Covering every Powerball line would cost about $584 million at $2 a ticket, take months to print, and break most state rules on bulk buying. If someone else also wins, the jackpot is split, and taxes cut what is left.
Questions? Read the FAQ. Stories are summarised from public news reports.