U.S. Lottery Winners Bag a Whopping $95 Million
Devilishly Clever Lottery Hack Nets $95M Jackpot in Texas
Oh boy, here's a whopper! A crooked crew of gamblers, led by the cunning Australian tycoon dubbed "The Joker" (Zeljko Ranogajec), and Bernard Marantelli, an ex-banker with a thirst for risk, managed to crack the Texas lottery jackpot, pocketing a staggering $95M!
Now, let's dive into the nitty-gritty of how these shysters pulled this off.
The Dastardly Lottery Scheme
In the spring of 2023, our sneaky scoundrels hatched a plan to conquer the Texas lottery. By generating an estimated 25.8M tickets, they aimed to bag the massive $95M jackpot!
To execute this scheme, the gamblers set up their own band of lottery sales outlets and teamed up with Lottery.com as a service partner. This service provider had access to the official lottery infrastructure, which included those all-important ticket-printing terminals for the Texas Lottery.
With these bad boys at their disposal, they could print millions of lottery tickets in record time, stashing them neatly in the Texas Lottery system. By doing it themselves, they managed a feat that would've been logistically impossible otherwise.
The Main Characters: The Joker and Bernard Marantelli
Let's get to know our crafty crooks, shall we?
Zeljko Ranogajec, affectionately known as 'The Joker,' built his fortune on the backs of Blackjack, horse racing bets, and systematic lottery participation. This billionaire mastermind runs a global sports betting syndicate, said to generate $10B yearly, thanks to its data models and algorithms.
Bernard Marantelli, formerly a derivatives trader at Deutsche Bank, then founded his own stationary sports betting company in Australia before branching out into the online betting scene with ColossusBets.
$25.8M in Tickets Secures the Jackpot Win
Once preparations were in place, Ranogajec, Marantelli, and their crew dropped a cool $25.8M on lottery tickets. Covering damn near every possible number combo, they waited for their lucky day, and they sure as hell got it.
Tickets were cranked out in shifts, with a mind-bending 100 per second! In the end, they tallied over 25.5M tickets, leaving just a smidgen of the combos uncovered.
During the draw on April 22, 2023, one of these magical tickets hit the jackpot, matching the winning sequence of 3, 5, 18, 29, 30, and 52, making history!
The after-tax payout came to around $57.8M, which was promptly claimed by the shadowy entity Rook TX, keeping the identities of the winners hidden for a bit.
Investigative journalism by The Wall Street Journal subsequently ID'd the winners after a few weeks.
The Furor Back Home
The citizens of Texas were far from pleased with the actions of the lottery winners. Dan Patrick, the state's Lieutenant Governor, branded their moves "the greatest theft from Texas residents ever!"
While investigations against the syndicate were dropped due to lack of evidence of any wrongdoing, they did kickstart a reassessment of the lottery software and a limit on the tickets that can be purchased daily at the terminals.
Unclaimed Winnings in the US
In the U.S., it's not uncommon for high-value prizes to go unclaimed. A million-dollar prize in a popular lottery vanished into thin air in 2022, despite repeated attempts to claim it. Amazingly, a massive $36M prize from the Mega Millions lottery in Florida met the same fate when the legal claim period of 180 days slipped by without anyone stepping forward.
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- Bernard Marantelli, a former derivatives trader from Deutsche Bank, and Zeljko Ranogajec, known as "The Joker," orchestrated a scheme that manipulated the Texas lottery system, using derivatives from their own gambling background.
- In the spring of 2023, Marantelli and Ranogajec bought a substantial number of lottery tickets worth $25.8M, covering a significant number of combination possibilities, hoping to win the jackpot.
- With access to Lottery.com's ticket-printing terminals, they finally managed to print over 25.5M tickets, which, when analyzed, led to one winning ticket on April 22, 2023, securing the $95M jackpot.
- The subsequent investigation by The Wall Street Journal revealed the identities of the winners, causing an outrage among Texas residents, who saw it as a huge theft.
- Despite the uproar, investigations against the syndicate were dropped due to insufficient evidence, but the incident did lead to a review of the lottery software and a restriction on the number of tickets that could be purchased per day.
