Almost everyone has dreamt of winning the lottery. But sadly, for an overwhelming majority, this dream will remain just that – a dream. 

That’s because our chances of hitting the jackpot are very slim or, to be precise, close to zero. But a certain man has done the impossible by winning the lottery 14 times! Let’s see how he did it.

A Romanian-Australian man became a hero of the lottery community in the 80s and 90s. His name was Stefan Mandel, the winner amongst the winners. 

He had defied the odds and won the lottery a whopping 14 times, raking in over $40 million in total prize money. He became the object of several investigations and suspicions. But he didn’t achieve this rare feat by mere luck. He arrived at it with careful calculation.

Born in Romania in 1934, Mandel began his hunt for fortune in his home country. His desire to clinch the grand prize came after fortune smiled on him in Romania. 

He joined resources with a group of investors to buy lottery tickets, one of which turned out successful. The investors split the win amongst themselves, leaving Mandel curious and wanting more.

One of the raw materials that formed his craving for lottery wins was a desire to take his family out of Romania. At the time, Romania was a communist country and not a desirable place to live. 

His first win allowed him to fulfill this desire. He took his family to Australia, where he later became a citizen. After that, he began to sharpen his knowledge of how the lottery works.

Mandel had developed a formula to crack the lottery code back in Romania. This formula was responsible for his success in his home country. All he needed to do was to polish this formula to suit Australia’s more complex lottery system. 

Part of his plan was to increase his chances of winning. He did this by collaborating with other lottery investors who were to buy tickets across the country.

With Mandel and his business partners buying up every kind of lottery ticket in the country, he got to win lottery prizes. After that, he shared his big winnings with the team and cast his net in the river again. 

Not long after his success story began, Australian authorities started to beam the searchlight on him. They believed he was doing something illegal.

When the authorities found nothing incriminating about his lottery participation, they made moves to hinder him from winning. 

They identified several rules of the game that he could have been exploiting. They then changed these rules, hoping to scuttle whatever technique Mandel had developed. But Mandel was too invested in his pursuit to back down. He found other ways.

In response to the Australian authorities’ antics, Mandel began adjusting his strategies. With every lottery rule change, Mandel had to adjust. 

Down the line, the Australian authorities succeeded in wearing him out with frequent reviews of their lottery rules. He then decided to move to the United States. He maintained his partnership with his team as they looked to demystify the American lottery system.

Mandel’s methods again proved useful in America. In 1992, he and his partners bought all the ticket combinations for a grand prize of $27 million. He played the game so well that he was almost always certain of winning. 

“I knew that I would win one first prize, six-second prizes, 132 third prizes, and thousands of minor prizes,” he once said while commenting on his years of success.

Don’t even consider recycling Mandel’s strategy because it no longer works. It is no longer legal. The United States government has since established laws that have made the technique illegal. 

Mandel has resigned from lottery participation after his successful spell as a serial winner. He retired to Vanuatu, an Island in the South Pacific, to enjoy his fortune and live a peaceful life.

Mandel’s plan to spend his latter days in peace hasn’t quite worked out. He lost all his money and filed for bankruptcy in 1995. 

Mandel has returned to where he started his journey in Romania. He spent all his money settling the costs of a myriad of litigations arising from disputes with his business partners. He couldn’t pay many of them what he owed them.

Mandel isn’t alone. He shares a similar story with quite a number of jackpot winners who couldn’t preserve their wealth. One prominent example is Jack Whittaker, who, on Christmas day in 2002, won a Powerball jackpot of $314.9 million. 

Whittaker, who was 55 at the time, ended up squandering his winnings on an extravagant lifestyle. He left this world a sad man at the age of 72. It is pretty sad that Mandel, who was frugal with his spending, also failed to keep his money.