All bets are off as Dale Kearney goes all in for Ross Whitaker’s tense documentary, Beat the Lotto.
For decades, parents might jokingly comment on how they’d have to rob a bank to afford whatever expensive thing their children ask for. Then, when the National Lottery launched in Ireland in the 1980s, a new phrase took precedence: “Maybe if we win the Lotto.” For Cork mathematician Stefan Klincewicz, that wording became: “When we win the Lotto…” as he intended to use his expertise to ensure a win.
Starting in 1987, the National Lottery began with merely scratch cards. It wasn’t until the following year that the lotto was introduced to the people of Ireland—promising the dream of one lucky winner trading a £1 ticket into a £1 million windfall. Not a bad deal, right? Although, with nearly two million combinations of numbers, the chances of success were next to none. To talk about how you could increase your chances of winning that cash prize, Stefan Klincewicz appeared on late night RTÉ to promote his his book titled Systems to Help You Win the Lotto. There, opposite Pat Kenny, he was almost laughed out of the studio by the audience for suggesting you could beat what is essentially a game of luck—but Klincewicz saw it differently.
Stefan devised a plan to get a ticket with every possible combination to guarantee a win. Over the course of ten months, he handled all the paperwork to get the ball rolling—except, he just needed one final thing: money. He gathered a group of potential syndicate members who needed convincing before investing hundreds of thousands of pounds. In that room, he put his system to the test by asking for six random numbers. Within forty seconds, he found a ticket with those exact numbers. And like that, Klincewicz proved he could hit the jackpot.
To help us digest the raw maths, Ross Whitaker cleverly uses three formats to tell the story as succinctly as possible. Through a series of interviews, talking heads recount each person’s version of events—except for those at the National Lottery, who, unsurprisingly, weren’t too eager to recall their oversights. News footage from around the time grounds the whole series of events, pulling us right into the moment. Finally, Whitaker deftly includes dramatised scenes of the events for those key moments. Clear, direct, and compelling—this filmmaker makes sure the story lands.
At its core, Beat the Lotto is a story about a group of underdogs trying to crack a complex system. While it’s not quite David vs. Goliath—since David didn’t have the backing of extremely wealthy investors—it is interesting to see how the public opinion shifts as the narrative evolves. These two sides are in conflict… The National Lottery stressing how the syndicate is taking away the fun of the game, all while the syndicate publicly shows the people of Ireland how the National Lottery is stopping them from participating. Finally, when the numbers are drawn, the battle is set—and as an audience, we are hooked. Beat the Lotto is utterly riveting from the first Lotto ticket to the final Lotto ball.
Beat the Lotto premiered at Dublin international Film Festival on 26th February 2025.
