The Gambler with a $2 Million Plan to Win the Lottery (but Did He?)

Imagine you’re a lottery professional responsible for uncovering scams and shady activities. Imagine receiving a tip that a well-known gambler plans to spend as much as two million dollars on the purchase of tickets. What would you do?

The chances are that you’ll be alarmed. And that’s precisely how lottery officials felt when the story unfolded in real life.

Today Lotto Exposed is introducing Bernard Marantelli – a man on a mission to conquer the lottery. He came up with an ingenious plan to win the lottery. To understand what happened, however, you need to get a bit of background on Bernard Marantelli’s history.

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Who the Heck Is Bernard Marantelli?

Bernard Marantelli is the co-founder and CEO of Colossus – one of the biggest sports and racing bet platforms in the world.

As such, Bernard Marantelli’s net worth is quite high. The latest data for Colossus shows that the company’s turnover is 13.15 million pounds, and the total company assets are worth 5.78 million pounds. Taking these numbers into consideration, you’re probably thinking why a person of such value would be interested in beating the lottery.

Maybe it’s the gambling spirit, or perhaps it’s something else. In November 2019, however, Bernard Marantelli made headlines by sharing his intentions to spend up to two million dollars on acquiring lottery tickets in the US.

His intentions became so pronounced that lottery officials decided to keep an eye on Marantelli and the things that he was about to do.

Image Source: GamblingInsider.com

Breaking the Lottery Code

The Department of Consumer Protection in Connecticut received a pretty exciting warning in a letter from the Connecticut Lottery Corporation. It had come to the attention of lottery officials that a professional gambler from the UK had his eye on a 25.8-million-dollar jackpot that had accumulated in Connecticut Lotto.

Marantelli wasn’t hiding the fact that he planned to buy thousands and thousands of quick-pick tickets in an attempt to get his hands on the top prize.

Yes, Bernard Marantelli from Colossus Bets intended to come to the US and defeat a local game.

At the time the Department of Consumer Protection received the warning, Marantelli had already spent approximately 200,000 dollars on the acquisition of the desired tickets.

Bernard Marantelli, a professional gambler, and mathematician decided to carry on the experiment with the full intention of winning the lottery.

So, why did Marantelli decide to target the Connecticut Lotto – a local state game that isn’t famous for the biggest jackpots out there?

We guess that he calculated the statistical odds, and he decided that a local lottery would be much easier to beat than a larger national game like Mega Millions or Powerball, for example. Just consider the following fact – Connecticut Lotto has winning odds of one in 7,059,052. In comparison, the odds of winning Mega Millions are one in 302,575,350. Can you spot the difference?

So, Bernard Marantelli and his associates started purchasing numerous lottery tickets from small local outlets in anticipation of the November 1 drawing.

Media, however, did talk to retail lottery agencies in Stamford following the popularized Marantelli strategy. The Atlantic Market’s owner told media that the venue had sold approximately 500,000 more lottery tickets for the November 1 drawing than it typically would have.

The chances are that some of the interest resulted from the anticipated massive prize. We don’t doubt the fact, however, that Bernard Marantelli also had something to do with the severe number.

We Have a Winner!

On November 1, Connecticut Lotto winning numbers were announced – 1, 9, 10, 15, 41 and 43. Lottery officials also announced there was a winning ticket for the drawing’s jackpot.

Everybody was curious to find out whether Bernard Marantelli had managed to defeat the lottery and its odds.

What became known immediately was the fact that the winning lottery ticket was acquired at a supermarket in Danbury. Marantelli and his associates had gone on a lottery ticket shopping spree in Stamford.

Several media sent emails to the Bernard Marantelli Colossus Bet account, but their letters remained unanswered.

On November 12, 2019, the Hartford Courant announced that a grandfather from Danbury was the lucky Connecticut Lotto winner. William McLaughlin, a local retiree, chose the lump sum payment and went home with 21.36 million dollars.

McLaughlin became the first person to win the Connecticut Lotto since the jackpot fell for the last time back in January 2018.

A Valiant but Meaningless Effort

What Bernard Marantelli and his associates had done isn’t unlawful, even though lottery officials kept a close eye on their efforts.

We have, however, spoken several times about lottery strategies and whether this work.

While buying a more significant number of tickets to cover different numerical combinations does improve the odds of winning, it’s in no way a guarantee of financial rewards. Very often, people buy just one very random ticket and get lucky. Most of the people who have claimed the biggest jackpots out there were not strategic in their efforts. Instead, they decided to test their luck.

Nobody knows for sure exactly how many tickets Marantelli has bought and the total amount of prizes he claimed as a result of the experiment. What’s most certain, however, is that he did lose some money. Lower prize tier awards are usually very small to justify such a massive investment in tickets.

One thing is sure; however, Bernard Marantelli and Colossus Bets did make headlines. Any form of publicity is a good thing, and a stunt like the one Marantelli pulled off is going to pay itself off in the form of new business.