An Idaho man who has won the state lottery 18 times and claimed hundreds of thousands of dollars in prizes says his greatest success has nothing to do with playing the odds.
Robert Bevan, of Boise, Idaho, has spent three decades visiting the Idaho Lottery winner’s room, having first won a four-door Chevy Blazer during a “Blazer Bucks” promotion run by Idaho Lottery in 1997.
Since then he has cashed checks of up to $200,000, with several $20,000 wins as well as checks for $5,000 and $1,000.
Each King Scratch Game – which is where Bevan has claimed some of his prizes – sell around 515,000 tickets each time and have a top prize of $1 million. He has also participated in other games including Cash Explosion and Winter Wonders.
But Bevan told the Idaho Lottery that he did not think much about the mathematical improbability of his good fortune, and instead saw the game as a hobby, which he shares with his wife.
“My real luck is 40 years with the same amazing woman,” Robert Bevan told the Idaho Lottery, after collecting his most recent win of $50,000 on the King Scratch Game.
This year the couple is celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary, and have made buying lottery tickets part of their everyday routine while out shopping for groceries or gas, he said.
The Independent has contacted Idaho Lottery for more information regarding his multiple wins.
Such success is extremely rare and Bevan’s luck is made even more amazing given his lack of method when choosing his scratch cards.
In 2019, The Hustle reported on Romanian-Australian economist, Stefan Mandel, who had won the lottery 14 times – using a six-step mathematical formula.
Mandel’s first two wins were in his native Romania, where he was trying to earn enough money to get his family out of the then-communist country. His salary was then just $88 a month.
He moved to Israel before settling down in Australia, where he won the lottery an additional 12 times.
