Genre: Documentary
Director: Ross Whitaker
In Irish Cinemas: Now
Set against the backdrop of early-1990s Ireland—before smartphones, online betting, and the deluge of gambling apps—this nostalgic documentary revisits a remarkable real-life caper that feels almost quaint by today’s standards. It tells the improbable tale of how a ragtag syndicate of entrepreneurs, hobbyist gamblers, and roped-in acquaintances attempted to outwit the Irish national lottery in 1992, not with hacking or digital manipulation, but with cold hard cash and a lot of printed tickets.
At the centre of this bold scheme is Stefan Klincewicz, a moustachioed former accountant who looks more like someone you’d meet balancing the books in a small-town office than the architect of one of Ireland’s most audacious lottery hustles. He wasn’t some suave criminal mastermind, nor a statistical savant in the Moneyball mould. Instead, Klincewicz had a startling yet straightforward insight: for under IR£1 million, it was mathematically possible to purchase a ticket for every single combination in the six-number Lotto draw. In theory, this would all but guarantee a jackpot win—provided, of course, they could print, sort, and submit all those tickets in time.
Their moment came when a rollover increased the prize pool to a level that made the gamble worthwhile. What followed was a kind of logistical madness: Klincewicz assembled a small army of volunteers and conscripts—teenage daughters, friends, and hangers-on—to buy and organise hundreds of thousands of tickets physically. It was a heist not of speedboats and blueprints, but of petrol stations, coin-filled briefcases, and harried clerks manning Lotto terminals.
But word of the plan reached the lottery authorities. The then-head of the Irish National Lottery, an accordion-playing bureaucrat with a flair for public relations, swiftly moved to thwart the syndicate. New limits were imposed on the number of tickets that individuals could purchase in a single transaction. Officially, the concern was that such schemes could undermine public trust in the game—if people believed wealthy syndicates could rig it, they might stop playing altogether.
Director Ross Whitaker weaves this curious footnote in Irish history into a brisk, entertaining hour of storytelling, peppered with charmingly dated 1990s broadcast footage. Grainy TV clips, vintage wardrobe choices, and wide-eyed interviewees lend the film an unpolished authenticity. The era is lovingly conjured through appearances on talk shows hosted not only by national treasure Gay Byrne but a dizzying array of others, so many that one begins to wonder if Ireland once held the global record for daytime chat programming per capita.
Yet for all its charm and colour, the documentary resists diving into deeper waters. There’s little exploration of broader social or economic contexts—no probing of Ireland’s shifting attitudes toward money, risk, or gambling. What we get instead is a straightforward, almost old-school caper tale, delivered with a wink and a pint in hand. It’s a story that nearly everyone involved remembers fondly as something done “for the craic.” And, of course, for the money.
Overall: 7/10
Movie Reviewer
