Most people spend a lifetime chasing luck — but one man turned it into a science. A Florida mathematician named Stefan Mandel won the lottery not once, not twice, but an astonishing 14 times across multiple countries, using what he called a “combinatorial algorithm” to beat the odds. His method was so effective it forced governments to rewrite lottery laws around the world.
Mandel’s story begins in the 1960s, when he was living in Romania under communist rule. Working as an economist earning barely enough to survive, he developed a formula to calculate the most likely combination of winning lottery numbers. As he told The Guardian, “It wasn’t luck — it was just math.” His goal wasn’t to get rich. He said he only wanted enough money to move his family out of the country.
A man who won the lottery 14 times says it’s not luck — it’s math. — @guardian
According to CNN’s deep dive into his method, Mandel calculated that in smaller lotteries with limited number combinations, it was possible to buy every possible ticket — guaranteeing a win. He’d gather a group of investors, pool the money, and purchase every combination using printed slips. When the winning numbers hit, they would share the jackpot.
His first big success came in 1964, when he correctly predicted five of six numbers in a Romanian lottery and won enough to emigrate to Australia. Once there, Mandel refined his formula, targeting low-cost lotteries with small pools and big payouts. Over the next decade, he won 12 more jackpots in Australia and the U.K., all completely legally. “It wasn’t about luck,” he explained to Reuters. “It was about removing luck from the equation.”
The math behind his method was surprisingly simple — though executing it was not. As Forbes detailed, Mandel would calculate the total number of possible ticket combinations using factorial equations, then identify when the jackpot was large enough that the cost of buying all combinations would still yield a profit. For example, if there were one million possible combinations and each ticket cost $1, the jackpot needed to exceed $1 million to make it worthwhile.
Stefan Mandel cracked the lottery using combinatorics — not luck. His formula forced lotteries to change their rules. — @Forbes
By the late 1980s, Mandel had built a small empire around his system, operating what one New York Times article called “the world’s only legal lottery investment fund.” His investors would send him funds to cover thousands of tickets, while teams of assistants printed, sorted, and submitted them. Each time, Mandel walked away with millions — and, eventually, a reputation as a genius gambler.
His most audacious move came in 1992, when he set his sights on the Virginia State Lottery. At the time, there were 7.1 million possible number combinations, and tickets cost just $1. Mandel’s team raised $7 million from investors, printed millions of tickets, and bought every combination just before the deadline. When the winning numbers were drawn, Mandel’s group claimed a $27 million jackpot — plus hundreds of smaller prizes for secondary matches.
In 1992, Stefan Mandel’s syndicate bought every combination in the Virginia Lottery — and won $27 million. — @nytimes
The win triggered an FBI and CIA investigation, but as Bloomberg confirmed, Mandel had broken no laws. “He didn’t cheat the lottery,” one agent said. “He just played it smarter than anyone else ever had.” Within months, lottery officials in multiple countries rewrote their systems to make it impossible to replicate his method — increasing number ranges, banning mass ticket purchases, and tightening registration rules.
Today, Mandel lives quietly on a tropical island off the coast of Vanuatu, where he’s reportedly retired and content. He has no plans to gamble again. “I didn’t rely on luck,” he told The Telegraph. “I relied on patience, research, and simple math. It was never about greed — it was about proving the system could be solved.”
“The system wasn’t unbeatable,” said Stefan Mandel. “It just required discipline and math — not superstition.” — @Telegraph
Financial experts often cite Mandel’s story as a rare example of rational genius meeting human audacity. His method may no longer work, but his legacy remains — a testament to how, for one man, numbers could bend the rules of luck itself. And in the end, as Mandel himself once joked, “You only need to be right once — or fourteen times.”