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The Math Whiz Who Won The Lottery 14 Times

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In the 1950s, Stefan Mandel won the Romanian lottery twice.

And then he took his winnings, packed his bags and settled in Australia, where he won the lottery 12 more times. Yeah, you read that correctly: 12.

So how did this math whiz beat the system?

Listen to the original Planet Money podcast episode here! Subscribe to our video series here — and, while you're at it, subscribe to our podcast.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Bronson Arcuri is a video producer at NPR, where he directs the "Planet Money Shorts" video series and helps out with Tiny Desk Concerts from time to time. He also produced "Elise Tries" and "Ron's Office Hours" along with the "Junior Bugler" series, which he still insists was "pretty good for what it was."