Transcript
Australian Financial Review Announcer (0:00)
It takes a certain type of person to succeed, the type that puts in the work when no one's watching, that knows staying informed isn't optional. It's their edge. It's not for everyone. The Australian Financial Review, the daily habit of successful people.
Podcast Host Samantha Sellinger Morris (0:18)
The state lieutenant governor of Texas has called it the biggest theft from the people of Texas in the history of Texas. He was referring to the work of Australian gamblers who scooped up a 95 million American dollar jackpot. And this is the kicker. They did it by buying up nearly every single lottery ticket and they say by following all the rules. I'm Samantha Sellinger Morris and you're listening to the Morning edition from the Age and the City Morning Herald. Today, investigative reporter Patrick Begley on the Australians who took Dan down. The Texan Lottery. It's March 10th.
Podcast Co-host (0:59)
Welcome back to the podcast, Patrick.
Investigative Reporter Patrick Begley (1:01)
Thank you so much for having me on.
Podcast Co-host (1:03)
Okay, I've got to tell the listeners, you and I have been talking about this for months. So it's a very exciting day when this is finally published and we can speak. So you've got to start off by telling everybody who are these men that pulled this off?
Podcast Host Samantha Sellinger Morris (1:18)
It's an eclectic group to say the least.
Podcast Co-host (1:20)
I mean, you can imagine these men being played by like Awkwafina or Rihanna. Were they women? And it was in some sort of like Ocean's Eleven type film, right?
Investigative Reporter Patrick Begley (1:29)
Maybe not in physical resemblance, but. But yeah, they're a funny mix in that they are professional gamblers. They are very mathematically numerate, but at the same time, they're operating in this world, which is not high finance on Wall street or in some downtown financial center. They're not in actuarial studies. They're applying their mathematical skills to gambling. And so their industry is lotteries, horse races, sports matches, roulette, wheels, pretty much any form of gambling they're interested in. So the two main people to start off with, and these were actually first identified by the Houston Chronicle, were Bernard Marantelli. He's the son of a Melbourne bookmaker. He learns at his father's feet about horse racing, greyhound racing. Then he becomes a financial trader at Deutsche bank, but then leaves and ends up as a professional gambler himself. He's got his own betting pool company, another company devoted to analytics. He's doing business in London and he's looking around the world for opportunities. He's also in business with the second main character in this story, who's also an Australian, and that's Djelko Renegaets. So Bernard Marentelli grew up in Melbourne. Renegaets grew up in Hobart, and he very early on had an interest in gambling. So when he was still a university student, he was interested in things like card counting. And he teamed up with David Walsh, who many people now know as the founder of Mona, the Museum of Old and New Art in Hobart. That museum is really built on gambling wealth. So Joel Ko Ranegaets and David Walsh's young guys, they're interested in card counting. They're interested in other things like Kino, and they're looking for any small opportunity or weakness in a game to exploit anything where there's a subtle advantage. And they're modus operandi is essentially to see a subtle, small advantage and then put as much money into it as possible. So it's really about the volume and ranagaic. He ends up leaving Australia to go to London as well. He sets up in London and he earns this reputation as one of the biggest gamblers in the world. David Walsh, at an investment conference, he talked about the syndicate that he and Ranigaerts are in. And in 2022, he said that they bet about $10 billion every year.