Appeared on 'The Lottery Changed My Life' Thursday
Richard Lustig faced a stack of medical bills after his son was born in 1992. At the same time, his house in South Florida had a leaky roof.
Then he plunked down a buck for a Millionaire Magic scratch-off ticket. Seconds later, he was $10,000 richer.
But he and his family didn't even go out for a celebratory dinner. By the time the bills were paid and the roof was repaired, there was nothing left over, he said.
That was just the beginning of a winning streak that would earn Lustig — now an Orange County resident — an appearance on The Learning Channel show "The Lottery Changed My Life," which aired Thursday evening.
Since that day 18 years ago, the 59-year-old Hunter's Creek man and his wife Cosetta have won more than $1 million from the Florida Lottery, including seven jackpot-level prizes.
The money allowed the family to move into a much bigger and nicer home. And when he is not driving his Jaguar, he is riding his Harley-Davidson.
He and his wife take more cruises than they did before he started winning and he even treated his entire family to an Alaskan cruise.
When he hits the casinos, blackjack is his favorite game. He even spent some time as a blackjack dealer.
But for the last 22 years he has been a student of the Florida Lottery.
"This is a job," he says of the Florida Lottery. "I play it seriously."
Winner has system
Lustig, who owns a talent agency, won't say how much he spends on lottery games, which varies from day to day, although he admits that sometimes it is hundreds of dollars in a single day.
Two factors in how much he spends on a particular day are the size of the jackpots in the games he is playing and how much he won the previous night.
But he says he can afford it.
"I'm playing with Lottery money," Lustig said. "I play more than most people."
And he plays every day of the week.
Lustig plays Fantasy 5, Mega Money, Lotto and Powerball, as well as scratch-off games.
He sticks to one scratch-off game at a time and is currently playing Billion Dollar Blockbuster, a $20 game that has eight, $10 million prizes and 90, $1 million prizes still available.
He won more than $13,000 in Fantasy 5 in 1997, won a couple of trips in scratch-off game "second-chance drawings" and then hit a big one: an $842,152.91 Mega Money jackpot on Jan 22, 2002.
Refining his method
He had been taking notes and refining his methods of playing, such as playing just one scratch-off game at a time instead of playing several different several games.
By the time he won his fourth big prize: "I knew I had something." And everyone wanted to know how he did it.
He decided it was time to stop sharing his secrets for free and printed out a 7-page report that he sold for $30, getting his customers through word of mouth.
After he hit a $73,658.06 Fantasy 5 jackpot in November 2008, "people were really hounding me for my method."
His son suggested he write a book, and while working on it his report grew to 25 pages and he started charging $40 a copy.
Two months ago he hit another Fantasy 5 jackpot, this time for almost $99,000, and allowed the Florida Lottery to take his photo. He had no idea they were going to send it out with a news release about his winning streak.
Within days, his fame began to mushroom.
Now he's an author
First he was on a local television station, then stations around the state ran his story. He made it to a national news channel and then Canadian television.
And orders for his $40 report began arriving by the dozens from around the world.
The information in the report is about to be published in book form, titled "Learning How to Increase Your Chances of Winning the Lottery." The 40-page self-published book will also sell for $40. (You can obtain a discounted copy of the book at the Lottery Post Book Store.)
Lustig doesn't claim that he can tell people how to win, only how to increase their chances, as the title says.
He doesn't give away too many tips for free these days, but one he shared is to reinvest lottery winnings.
Small prizes should be used to try to win more money, Lustig said.
For instance, if a person can only afford to spend $1 a day, then that is all they should spend. But if that $1 ticket wins $10, they should put it with the money they were going to spend the next day and buy $11 worth of tickets, he said.
"Reinvesting your money is important," he said.
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I saw this last night and I'm curious if he's using wheels or not. I will not pay for his 'method' but if anyone finds out I'm curious if it was a wheel or not.
I have a system .............. why ................... I won $9 a couple of weeks ago ............. a free ticket to boot ..........
................ no one is doing a story about me ?
I watched last nite and I too wondered if he used wheels.
It seems to me that he does not. Rather he simply spends a lot of money every day buying online games and scratch offs. Search LP for Richard Lustig, lots of posts discuss his "method".
I bought his book, and i feel that it was worth the $36 i paid for it at amazon. The funny thing is that i had used these methods before and they worked for me .HE DOES NOT USE WHEELS TO PLAY. The only thing that i did not like about the book was the section on scratch tickets and lottery raffle games. The method can be applied to any lottery game in the world.But the way that mr. lustig applies it can leave anyone in the poor house. I know that he had won multiple jackpots by using the secret method, but if you are worth 5 billions and owed 10 billions are you really rich. The same goes for lotteries, have you really won anything if you have lost more than what you have won playing.BY THE WAY HIS SCRATCH TICKETS METHOD AND LOTTERY RAFFLE METHOD IS A GREAT METHOD. I'M JUST NOT A FAN OF THESE GAMES. I LIKE NUMBERS GAMES LIKE POWERBALL, MEGA MILLIONS, NY LOTTO, TAKE 5 ETC.
Anyone can obtain the book from the Lottery Post Book Store. All orders are fulfilled by Amazon.com, so you're getting the exact quality and price you would get directly from Amazon.
Also, don't forget to pick up a copy of the 2009 Lottery Results Almanac while you're there -- the 2010 edition will be out in less than three months!
Your killing me, I can't stop laughing. . .
I watched the episode on my DVR this morning and wondered the same thing. What IS his method? Like a lot of posters, I'm not willing to shell out $36 to find out, though! I wonder if his book would be at our local library....:)
He hit a 10,000 scratchoff and there is no method to that..
I too purchased his so called system it is a joke he tells you nothing new other than to spend alot of money and play the same numbers over and over don't waste your money! The reason he wins is because he pours alot of money in it everyday. If you have the money to blow go ahead!
I'm happy for Mr. Lustig, but his method as far as I can tell is to pour hundreds of dollars into playing every day. In the show he buys a scratch-off we have called $100,000 for Life. The game is $10 and the clerk hands him a stack of at least 10. That's just what he spent on scratch-offs. He also plays Fantasy 5, Mega Money, Lotto and Powerball.
If you can swing it, do it. Unfortunately my daily gaming budget is in the single digits.
IQUESS IT WORKS FOR HIM, GOOD LUCK OR GOOD PLAYING!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's self-published, so it will almost certainly not be available at your local library.
Many can afford Lustig's book. Few can afford his system.
If I had hundreds of dollars to spend every day playing the lottery, I'd do it too. That's the only way to improve one's odds of winning.
There are two clues in the article that give away his secret. First, he refuses to say how much he spends per day. If he did that, most people would immediately realize what his system is, and sales of the book would be dismal. Second, he says "never spend more than you can afford." He'd be heavily criticized for telling people to daily spend a lot of money without saying that. Word would spread quickly about that, and kill the sales of his book.
He should take some of the money............................he won enough to live comfortably but if he keeps spending hundreds a day he may give it all back..............
Keystone
i ordered his book monday i play in ohio like to see how much he is spending on the pick 5 i have only hit 4 numbers out of 5 once and hit 2 to 3 a couple times a week but will see i ordered it sunday so hope it will be here by the end of the week!
Maybe he should start spending and giving it to his family like crazy now cuz if he dies after the 1st of the year, Obama's Death Tax is gonna take 55% of it before his family sees a penny.
It might help cover about a nanno-second's worth of the interest accruing on the money we borrowed from the Chinese to fund all the shovel-ready projects Obama claimed were ready to proceed. (He recently admitted there never really were any shovel-ready projects). But the money is coming in really handy as a slush fund to pay off unions and community organizers and other criminal groups for their support in rigging elections.
So we can be thankful for that anyway.
where did you find his book to order.would like to know. thanks linda
Big mistake! You should avoid being publicly declared as a lottery winner, unless you were wealthy to start with. It is ALWAYS best to keep as low a profile as you can, even though lottery officials will try and coax you into appearing in public holding that big check.
You can go run and hide, davey boy.
I ain't afraid a nothin or nobody, myself.
You californy dancin boys seem kinda delicate.
maggie
I'm just trying to help the poor soul, Maggie.
The poor little fella just doesn't understand that admitting you have a problem is the first step on the road to recovery from nutjob-ism.
Yes, I'll allow that perhaps ballet is extremely important to the majority of "men" in California, but for dadgum sakes, you can't let it consume your every waking moment with passionate dreams about codpieces and the perfect pirouette!
He needs an intervention!
Belief is what matters! That is what makes the difference!
Faith in winning the lottrey is like a muscle and when yo use it, it gradually grows!
I've been trying myself to win for some weeks and something kind of "spooky"happened to me last week.
After giving myself little suggestions on a daily basis, on the night of the draw, I felt "convinced" that I had one some money!
It was like having a strong hunch, talking about intuition! But this was the first time ever that I really I felt "something as true with a strong convinction" when I didn't know how I knew it - rationally! It was almost like having a split personality - I felt it but my mind could not work out the logic of it - as though my rational mind knew it had to be true because it felt like it, but couldn't work out why!
When I checked my lottery account, they credited me with £10! I had won a lucky dip!
This is the meaning of: According to your faith be it done onto you!
Just as your muscles can lift so much weight according to their strength, so it is with your faith! So far my faith has only been able "to lift" a tenner, but it is only a question of time - and focus!
I don't wanna be the sand in the vaseline here max but it might have been just dumb luck too.
Have you really never had a hunch that was way, way off before, like most of us do every day?
I just have a hard time reconciling Bible passages with you winning 10 euros.
I just don't think that was the intent.