A man has told RTE's Joe Duffy that he has won over €100,000 in the Lotto in the last five years without ever buying a ticket.
The caller phoned into Liveline on Monday to tell Joe how he does it.
The man said: "Well Joe, typically I play the numbers in the bookies. I don't try to guess five numbers; I guess either three numbers or four numbers in the bookies, and I do that Joe, by looking for patterns.
"I look at all the numbers from the past year or two and identify which numbers come up the most on a regular basis, and I play those numbers."
The caller said he rarely buys an actual Lotto ticket as he doesn't 'put any faith' in them.
He said: "I think I've won two grand on a quick pick maybe a year ago, but that was about it."
The man went on to explain to Joe just how he has perfected his system.
He said: "You go into the bookies, and you pick your slip for whatever lottery you want to do, and then you mark down, you know, the numbers that you're gonna bet on."
He added: "I'll just mark those numbers. And then you have your stake. You can put either 25c up to, I think, 20 dollars on a set of numbers. Usually, when I win big money, I was pretty confident they were gonna come up that day, so I would do a stake of maybe €25 on a certain set of numbers, and if they come up, you win like 30 or 40 thousand euros, and they did twice."
The man said he has always been good with numbers and has been able to identify number patterns since he was a child.
He said: "Well Joe, even since I was a kid, I was always good at numbers. I'm always good at patterns. I recognise them in literature in books, you know, all the time.
"So, you know, when I came to Ireland a few years ago my sister in law… introduced me to the Irish Lotto and the first time I tried it I think I won like maybe €300. So, I said this is pretty fun, um, but no, I kind of got a bit smarter over the years. It's been about five years.
"Specifically what I do know is, I'll print, or I'll look at all the numbers for let's say the daily millions for the last year or two, and I'll just kind of scan, okay which numbers come up repeatedly in a three number pattern, or a four number pattern, and ill mark them all out. And then, I printed a spreadsheet where I can track the dates they came out.
"I'll know, okay, these numbers came out, you know, twice in this year, once in this year, or they came out once last week, they're bound to come up again. So I'll increase my stakes on those numbers."
