Group of clever pals bag MILLIONS after working out how to win the lottery
A GROUP of super-smart friends appear to have found a way to win the lottery - after a streak of wins seeing them rake in millions of pounds.
Manuel Montori, 27, Matthew Gibbons, 26, Hannah Davinroy, 25, and Zoe Buonaiuto, 29, have scooped nearly £4.5 million ($6 million) after hitting jackpots across US state lotteries.
The crew - all prestigious Princeton Graduates - appear to be on a winning streak after winning lotteries in Indiana, Missouri, Washington and the District of Columbia.
Their unprecedented wins came to light when Manuel cashed in 61 winning Hoosier Lottery scratch-off tickets in a single day in September, reported.
The majority of his winning tickets, which sell for £22 ($30) a pop, were for £748 ($1,000), but some were for £74,81 ($10,000), bringing his total win from the jacket a cool £65,837 ($88,000).
But that prize was eclipsed when he won £3.7 million ($5 million) top prize in another scratch ticket lottery in Missouri the following month.
Other wins the friends have racked up include a £90,526 ($121,000) payout Hannah received from the Missouri Lottery in September, while she also picked up a £748,155 ($1 million) cheque from the Washing DC Lottery last December.
And last March Manuel also won £74,815 ($100,000) on the DC Lottery, while the friends narrowly missed out on a £748,155 ($1 million) win at the Indiana State Fair last year, instead walking away with just £374 ($500).
All four friends are linked to company Black Swan LLC, and despite their unbelievable winning streak there’s no evidence of foul play.
Rather, experts believe the Ivy League graduates are using publicly-available data to work out the odds of winning a certain jackpot, and which games are the most advantageous to play.
I think a good analogy is that needle-in-the-haystack type of thing
Jeffrey C. Miecznikowski
Jeffrey C. Miecznikowski, a professor in the Department of Biostatistics at SUNY University, told Indy Star: “I think a good analogy is that needle-in-the-haystack type of thing, where the more information you have, the more hay you're likely to be able to remove, to where your chances of finding the needle are much, much better.”
Lottery officials claim it’s not illegal to use data to work out which games are favourable to play, and officials in Indiana, Missouri and the District of Columbia vetted Hannah and Manuel’s claims - just as they do with all big eins - before they received the payout.
Julie Henricks Mahurin, director of public relations for the Hoosier Lottery, said Montori’s 61 wins were “consistent with our statute and administrative rules.”
But while their current winning streak is paying off, it seems as if the pals are investing a lot in the hopes of a big payout.
It’s thought the group are snapping up thousands of lottery tickets at a time - costing thousands of pounds.
Darian Crites, a manager at Smoke ‘n’ Lotto in Bloomington, which sold one of the winning $10,000 tickets, estimates the group spent £35,911 ($48,000) on 1,600 tickets - and that’s just at one store.
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