Logistics, perhaps. In the three-day window before the drawing, 20 of the fund's representatives scrambled around Virginia trying to buy as many of the 7 million tickets as possible (they ran out of time and were stuck with 1.5 million combinations uncovered). Luckily, they did have a little pink slip bearing the numbers 8, 11, 13, 15, 19, 20 and entitling the winners (pending resolution of a dispute over how much tax the Australians owe) to 20 annual payments of $1.3 million, earning 2,524 investors $400 a year per $3,000 unit. Mandel's true genius? He'd already netted $1.7 million in consulting fees for the deal.
The self-described "hobby mathematician" won his first jackpot in his native Romania in 1964—a mere $4,377 but enough to fund his escape from the country's tyrannical Ceausescu regime. Mandel, who also runs an insurance business, now lives in Australia with his wife, Kathleen, 47, and their two sons, aged 10 and 13. He. continues to look for big-pot, low-cost lotteries the world over (which gets harder every day—after Mandel's win, Virginia tightened laws governing block ticket purchases), keeping Australian authorities on their toes. "I've been investigated by 14 agencies," he claims. "And I got a clean bill of health."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
