A MATHEMATICIAN won the lottery 14 times by creating a specific strategy that beat insane odds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While living in communist-era Romania, Stefan Mandel crafted a formula that secured a life-changing fortune before earning over a dozen jackpots in a surprisingly legal\u00a0lottery<\/a>\u00a0business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mandel was working as an economist in the late 1950s when he began to brainstorm his way out of deep poverty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He determined that the lottery was the best way to stumble into a fortune that could get him to a country with more opportunities, and started crafting his formula.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eventually, Mandel discovered the perfect math formula that could predict five out of six winning numbers, Lottery Critic<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Four years after creating the formula, he teamed up with three other friends to try their hand at the jackpot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mandel was only going for second prize as it required matching five numbers, but the mathematician was shocked when he ended up winning the first place prize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The total earned was 77,783 leu which Mandel said was about 18 years of his salary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While this specific formula helped Mandel to predict numbers in Romania’s lottery, he changed his strategy when he moved to Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Australia, the mathematician gained access to tons of UK lottery options. He saw this as the foundation for a business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead of devising a complex formula that predicted numbers, he decided the best way to up your chances was simply by purchasing as many tickets as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, he created a lottery business of sorts by taking on investors who would pool money so Mandel’s operation could buy tickets in droves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After securing a win, he would waltz to the office to collect his prize and divide the winnings among investors and ticket buyers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mandel actually approached lottery offices and told them he had every intention of buying each ticket option, and there were no laws in place to prevent him from doing so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sadly after his 13th overall win, many laws had been passed that prevented him from continuing his lottery business legally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This forced him to look at another more liberal county – America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By analyzing all the different lottery options in the US, he set his sights on the Virginia lottery as there were only 7.1million number combinations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n When the lottery reached $27million in 1992, Mandel’s team sprang into action, and they did so without ever leaving Sydney.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lotto laws at the time allowed players to print their tickets at home, meaning anyone could effectively play if they submitted the homemade tickets to a convenience store.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To avoid shipping cash all the way to Virginia, Mandel created an account so the ticket buyers could use checks at the stores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The team worked tirelessly but still faced a massive hurdle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite their best efforts, they missed out on around 1million ticket options.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Luck was still on Mandel’s side though, and his team secured his 14th lottery win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Not only did they get the $27million but also tons of second and third place prizes, which added up to a grand total of over $30million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This lottery story comes as one woman visited<\/a> the same local gas station every week before taking in a giant prize.<\/p>\n\n\n\n