Dylan Murray
Many people dream of one day being lucky enough to win millions from a lottery ticket, but not many can say they’ve found a way to take luck out of the equation.
A group of four Princeton graduates bought lottery tickets from sources across the US, winning a total of over $6 million dollars across 66 individual winning tickets.
Apparently, the four graduates used a specific method to win big, with some saying they found a way to 'beat the system'.
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Manuel Montori IV, Matthew Gibbons, Hannah Davinroy, and Zoë Buonaiuto, the four big winners, sourced tickets from different shops and gas stations in Indiana, Missouri, Washington, and the District of Columbia.
Throughout their search for winning tickets, their biggest win came from Missouri, where Montori found a $5 million dollar ticket along with his smaller winnings from the state.
Although some have questioned whether their success was legal, there's nothing to suggest the group was acting outside of the law, as they were purchasing tickets legitimately from each of the shops they visited.
The masterminds bought up thousands of tickets, cleaning out stores’ entire supply by spending thousands of dollars during each visit.
"They're either the luckiest people in the world or they found a way to beat the system," Philip Stark, Professor of Statistics at the University of California, told Good Morning America.
The four graduates are associated with a company founded by Montori called Black Swan Capital LLC, and experts have suggested that the group may have analyzed publicly available data regarding past ticket results to help increase their chances of winning. Specifically, one Bloomington, Indiana shopkeeper told The Indianapolis Star that Davinroy and Buonaiuto mentioned that they were working on a study after buying out their entire stock of lottery tickets.
The manager, Darian, also added that she had been asked by the group to notify them when more tickets arrived at the store, with the girl returning each time to once again buy the entire stock of tickets.
Darian estimated that the pair must’ve spent over $48,000 in total at her location throughout their experiment.
Similar stories to the one told by the manager in Bloomington, Indiana were heard and told in the other states the group was targeting, notably Missouri, where Davinroy and Buonaiuto were also actively buying up lottery tickets.
The group's tactics have made many question just how strategic you can be when it comes to winning big on the lottery. Some theorized that, because the lottery tickets they were buying were ones that were soon to be discontinued without the grand prize being found, they chose to hunt those down for that specific reason.
While information regarding lottery wins is publicly available and could’ve played a big role in the group's strategy, experts have warned that buying hundreds of lottery tickets is still a major gamble as it does not guarantee a win, and could result in major losses.
Each of the four winners has remained tight-lipped about their endeavors, though Zoë Buonaiuto did tell one journalist: “Call me back in a year. I'm happy to talk to you in a year... It’s exciting.”