Beat the Lotto review: Fizzy caper about numbers and a canny cabal trying to game the system
Grey, economically down in the dumps, and haemorrhaged by emigration, the Ireland of the 1980s was no funfair. But what a contrast it provides for this fizzy documentary caper about multi-coloured lottery numbers and a canny cabal trying to game the system.
Ross Whitaker's film introduces us to Cork mathematician Stefan Klincewicz, who shortly after the 1987 rollout of our National Lottery spotted a flaw that might be exploited.
It would involve investors and manpower, all of whom had to be convinced that the numbers in Stefan's head were worth buying into. But how watertight were those calculations, and had Stefan considered all eventualities?
Aside from these issues coming into question, things got very interesting when the lottery company got wind of the painstaking plan and sought to put the kibosh on it.
Awarded Best Irish Film at the Dublin International Film Festival, this is a superb evening out that manages to be cracking entertainment while also a snapshot of our near-distant past. At its heart, Whitaker fashions a mighty underdog tale where our national irreverence for authority is championed.
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