Buzz
Throughout the years, individuals have manipulated various lotteries to win enormous sums of money. Some have done so within legal boundaries, while others crossed into criminal activity, and a few operated in legally ambiguous zones. A common legal strategy for gaming the lottery, for instance, involves purchasing large quantities of tickets. However, this may not always be feasible due to state regulations.
This is one reason why mathematicians, statisticians, and economists have meticulously analyzed the lottery systems to uncover the best possible strategies for winning. In some instances, criminal organizations have bribed lottery officials to rig the games—even on live broadcasts. Occasionally, lottery staff members themselves have manipulated lottery software or devised other innovative methods to cheat.
10. Stefan Mandel
In the 1960s, Romanian economist Stefan Mandel created an algorithm that allowed him to accurately predict five of the six numbers on the winning lottery ticket in the Romanian lottery. He referred to this technique as 'combinatorial condensation.'
He had family and friends contribute money to buy thousands of tickets, each containing the five winning numbers and an additional random number. He earned 78,783 lei ($19,300). With his $4,000 portion of the winnings, Mandel left Romania for Australia, where he began his lottery cheating efforts once again.
Mandel realized he could win the Australian lottery by purchasing every single ticket. The Australian lottery allowed players to choose six numbers between 1 and 40. By buying all 3,838,380 possible combinations at $1 per ticket, he was guaranteed to win—as long as the jackpot exceeded $3,838,380. Mandel found investors, winning multiple times before the lottery changed its rules to close the loophole.
Mandel then shifted his focus to the Virginia lottery in the United States, where players selected numbers between 1 and 44. With 7,059,052 possible combinations—far fewer than the 25 million in other US lotteries—he established the International Lotto Fund (ILF) under his company, Pacific Financial Resources, and offered shares to 2,524 investors.
Each investor contributed at least $3,000 to the venture. Mandel purchased computers and printers, hiring a team of 16 people to print nearly seven million tickets. However, he only managed to submit 5.5 million before the February 1992 deadline, which reduced his chances of winning from 100% to 78%. Ultimately, he won a $27,036,142 jackpot and over $900,000 in secondary prizes.
The Virginia Lottery refused to pay Mandel, launching an investigation involving 14 agencies, including the CIA, FBI, and Australian Securities Commission. After determining that Mandel had done nothing wrong, he paid himself a $1.7 million consultancy fee, leaving his investors with only $1,400 each. As a result, many US states have since enacted laws to prevent people from replicating Mandel’s winning strategy.
9. Nick Perry
In 1980, Nick Perry was revealed as an accomplice in one of the most infamous scandals in US lottery history. At the time, Perry was the host of the television show where the winning numbers for the Pennsylvania Daily Number (now known as Pick 3) were drawn.
The lottery numbers were selected by placing numbered balls inside a machine that spun and shuffled the balls before releasing three winning numbers. This process was broadcast live on television, with Perry serving as the host—a role he had held since 1977.
Unbeknownst to the audience, Perry, along with several television and lottery office staff members, had secretly conspired with the Maragos brothers to rig the lottery. They coated every ball except the ones numbered '4' and '6' with a special latex paint, making them heavier. This ensured that the winning combination would always include the numbers '4' and '6.'
On April 24, 1980, they struck it big, winning $ million after the machine drew the notorious number '666.' However, they never received the prize. Lottery officials became suspicious due to the overwhelming number of tickets containing only the numbers '4' and '6' that had been purchased across the state.
Investigations quickly uncovered the criminal connection between Perry and the Maragos brothers. The brothers avoided jail by turning on Perry and several other lottery officials. Perry was sentenced to seven years in prison, while the other lottery employees received sentences of two years or less. Perry maintained his innocence until his death in 2003.
8. A Criminal Syndicate and Several Blindfolded Children
In December 1998, the Italian lottery was rocked by a scandal when it was discovered that a criminal gang had been manipulating the system. At the time, winning numbers were drawn by blindfolded children selecting balls from a metal basket.
However, a syndicate had bribed the children, coaching them to pick balls that were smoother and larger than the others. Interestingly, most of the children were relatives of employees from the finance ministry, which oversaw the lottery. One of the most notable frauds took place in Brescia, Italy, where a rigged win resulted in a payout of over £3 million.
The trouble began when the employee from the finance ministry who was in charge of the scheme was reassigned to a different office. He notified the group that he would be ending the fraudulent operation. Despite his efforts, the group rejected his decision and attempted to pressure him into persuading a colleague to take over his role.
The employee from the ministry stood firm, insisting on bringing the scheme to an end. In retaliation, the group subjected him and his family to harassment. They even shot at his car and targeted businesses associated with his relatives. Frustrated, his wife eventually contacted the police, exposing the entire fraud.
7. Jerry And Marge Selbee
In 2003, Jerry Selbee uncovered a flaw in the Michigan WinFall lottery system. Unlike the Mega Millions lottery, where the jackpot keeps growing until someone matches all six numbers, the WinFall jackpot stopped increasing once it hit $5 million.
If no one managed to match all six numbers, the prize money was distributed among those who matched five, then four, and even three numbers. This process is referred to as a roll-down. Jerry, a graduate in math, realized that he had a higher chance of winning during a roll-down and began buying tickets to double his investment.
Marge, his wife, soon became actively involved, and together they began investing hundreds of thousands of dollars into the venture. Eager for more winnings, the couple established G.S. Investment Strategies, enabling their friends and family to invest in their lottery venture.
By 2005, the couple moved away from the Michigan WinFall lottery and shifted their focus to the Massachusetts Cash WinFall. They made the 14-hour journey to Massachusetts, purchasing hundreds of thousands of tickets during roll-downs. Their operation was exposed in 2011, when The Boston Globe launched an investigation into the unusually high ticket sales at stores where they had been buying tickets.
The Boston Globe revealed the scheme, as well as a similar operation run by MIT students. By that point, Jerry and Marge had amassed $26 million in winnings. While investigators determined that the couple and the MIT students hadn’t violated any laws, the loophole ultimately led the state to shut down the game.
6. Joan Ginther
Joan Ginther is a mysterious figure known for winning the lottery multiple times, thanks to her deep understanding of mathematics and statistics. It is confirmed that she won four times, though many believe she may have claimed even more victories. Furthermore, several of her friends have also struck it rich, fueling speculation that she might have used them as intermediaries in her winning strategy.
Nevertheless, we cannot verify this claim since Ginther, who resides in Las Vegas, refuses to give interviews or disclose her strategies for winning. Ginther's first lottery win came in 1993, when she claimed $5.4 million. Some believe her initial success was a stroke of luck, sparking her interest in finding a way to manipulate the system. Others think she analyzed the sales of tickets during lotteries to assess her chances of winning.
5. James Harvey
In 2005, James Harvey, a math student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), devised a strategy to exploit the Massachusetts Cash WinFall lottery. He realized that the lottery was structured to pay out $1.20 in prize money for every $2 ticket sold, but that payout increased to $2.30 during roll-downs.
Harvey joined forces with around 50 other MIT students to buy tickets during roll-downs. They invested $1,000 in tickets and earned $3,000 in return. By 2010, Harvey expanded his operation by co-founding Random Strategies Investments, LLC with a partner, attracting more investors, purchasing more tickets, and boosting their profits.
At the same time, the Selbees were also taking advantage of the Massachusetts Cash WinFall lottery, as was a group from Boston University. However, Harvey had the advantage due to his understanding of the lottery's inner workings, and he even received legal guidance from the lottery office. Much like the Selbees' venture, the operation collapsed after The Boston Globe conducted an investigation and exposed the scheme.
4. Eddie Tipton
On December 23, 2010, a man wearing a hooded sweatshirt entered a QuikTrip store in Des Moines, Iowa, and bought a ticket for the ongoing Iowa Hot Lotto. Six days later, he was announced as the winner of the $16.5 million jackpot after correctly matching all six numbers.
The jackpot remained unclaimed until November 2011, when an attorney named Philip Johnston contacted the lottery office to claim the prize. He provided the correct serial number of the ticket, but made a mistake about the clothing he wore when purchasing the ticket. Johnston later admitted he was claiming the winnings for an anonymous client.
The lottery office refused to release the prize, citing Iowa lottery rules that required the winner to reveal their identity. A second attempt to claim the prize through a law firm representing a trust in Belize also failed after lottery officials discovered that Philip Johnston was the president of the trust. Suspicious of the situation, they initiated an investigation.
Authorities obtained surveillance footage of the individual who purchased the lottery ticket. Despite their efforts, they could not identify him, so they made the footage public, hoping someone would come forward with information. It was later revealed that the man was Eddie Tipton, who worked at the lottery office and had written the software that generated the winning numbers. Investigations showed that Tipton had secretly embedded software into one of the two computers responsible for selecting the winning numbers.
While Tipton was on trial for fraud, an anonymous caller informed authorities that Tipton's brother, Tommy Tipton, had won the lottery ten years prior. Additionally, in 2007, Tipton's friend Robert Rhodes had also won a substantial amount—$783,257—from the Wisconsin lottery. Tipton was convicted of two counts of fraud and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
3. Edward Putman
In 2009, Edward Putman became the winner of a £2.5 million jackpot from the UK National Lottery. His win was surrounded by controversy at the time, as he was a convicted rapist. In 1991, Putman was sentenced to seven years in prison for the rape of a pregnant 17-year-old.
In 2012, Putman stirred further controversy when he was charged with illegally receiving £13,000 in government benefits after winning the lottery. He had claimed that he was 'too ill to work,' 'too broke to eat,' and facing eviction. However, it was later revealed that he owned two homes and a collection of sports cars worth millions of pounds.
Putman found himself back in the news in 2016 when an anonymous tipster informed Camelot Group, the lottery operator, that Putman had never truly won the jackpot. Investigations later uncovered that Putman had redeemed the prize using fraudulent tickets, which he had intentionally damaged to conceal critical numbers.
However, authorities explained that Putman could not face fraud charges because Giles Knibbs, the Camelot Group employee allegedly involved in the scheme, had taken his own life. Investigators suspect Knibbs had shared the winning numbers with Putman.
2. Remmele Mazyck
In 2009, Remmele Mazyck, who served as a deputy security director at the Arkansas Lottery, initiated a scheme to exploit the lottery he had played a key role in establishing. The lottery regularly distributed tickets for free as part of promotional efforts.
Mazyck took advantage of these tickets but never distributed them as intended. Instead, he scratched them to check for winning numbers. He only cashed in winnings that were under $500, as larger sums would have required him to visit the lottery office. His fraud was exposed in October 2012 when he tried to cash in tickets from a store that was no longer in business.
Investigations revealed that between 2009 and 2012, Mazyck had redeemed over 22,000 winning tickets, totaling $478,000. However, his attorney argued that the amount only reflected the total value of the tickets he had fraudulently obtained, not all of which were winners. Mazyck was sentenced to 37 months in prison and ordered to pay more than $482,000 in restitution.
1. Zhao Liqun
In 2005, Zhao Liqun, a Chinese man who ran three stores for the Chinese Welfare Lottery, discovered a loophole that enabled him to purchase tickets with the winning numbers within five minutes of their announcement. Zhao exploited this advantage, accumulating 28 million yuan (approximately $3.76 million) over a two-year period.
Liqun frequently recruited his friends and neighbors to claim the winning lottery tickets on his behalf, hoping to avoid drawing attention to himself. However, in January 2007, he was apprehended after lottery officials noticed that the individuals redeeming the tickets were not the same people who had originally purchased them. As a result, Liqun was sentenced to life imprisonment, and his properties were confiscated by the government.
