Kind of the same did happen in Switzerland this January. https://www.tagesanzeig...

tzs · 2025-03-05T21:26:48 1741210008

I wonder if anyone is keeping a list of all the times this has happened?

I know that its not something new, because 30 years ago when I was in law school one of the cases studied in my class on transnational taxation was that of an Australian group (if I'm remembering the right country...) that tried to buy every possible ticket in a US lottery.

My recollection is that they only ended up getting something like 90% of the possible numbers but that was enough to get the top prizes and questions arose on how that should be taxed and whether the cost of the tickets was deductible.

tjalfi · 2025-03-05T22:30:22 1741213822

You're thinking of Stefan Mandel's International Lotto Fund[0]. They tried to buy every ticket in the Virginia state lottery in 1992. They won the money, but IIRC there were years of litigation.

[0] http://investpost.org/mutual-funds/group-invests-5-million-t...

thaumasiotes · 2025-03-06T02:24:49 1741227889

> questions arose on how that should be taxed and whether the cost of the tickets was deductible

What were the questions? What would the case be that cost of tickets shouldn't be deductible?

ascorbic · 2025-03-06T10:23:04 1741256584

In many countries, gambling winnings are not taxed. I'm guessing the argument was that this wasn't really gambling.