Stefan Mandel

Stefan Mandel, a Romanian-born economist who had emigrated to Australia, built his method around lotteries whose jackpot exceeded the cost of buying every combination. Virginia's game asked players to pick six numbers from 44 — 7,059,052 combinations — and in February 1992 its jackpot reached about US$27 million. Mandel's Melbourne-based trust, the International Lotto Fund, had been set up in 1989 and funded by roughly 2,500 investors putting in about US$7.6 million. Play slips were printed in bulk in Australia, shipped to the United States and processed by couriers through Virginia retailers including the Farm Fresh chain around Norfolk, with about 60 people working the operation. The Roanoke Times reported that between 5.6 million and 7.1 million of the combinations were bought before the 15 February 1992 draw. The fund held the winning ticket, sold at a Farm Fresh in Chesapeake. Virginia lottery director Kenneth Thorson awarded the prize on 9 March 1992 after concluding the ticket had been bought lawfully, while Virginia State Police and the FBI examined the scheme and the source of its money. No wrongdoing was found. The first payment, just over US$1 million, was collected in Richmond.

As of The Hustle's profile of Mandel (published 2018, republished October 2024), he was retired from lottery work and living quietly on the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu. The same account reports that US states changed their rules after 1992 to make bulk purchase of every combination impractical.