Directed by Ross Whitaker, when downtrodden 1980s Ireland inaugurated a National Lottery, it became an obsession for Stefan. Seeing a flaw in the system, he attempted to fix the draw, but the heist became public, and the lottery tried to stop him, dividing the nation.
Some documentaries are intense, inspiring explorations about key moments in history, and some follow unusual, interesting local stories of specific moments in time that caused an unexpected maelstrom of attention, Beat the Lotto is the latter. It was a big cultural moment if you lived in Ireland but for the rest of the world, and as it was over forty years ago, you may never have heard this story and it’s one worth telling.
It’s a unique blend of being both local hero and villain story, some didn’t agree with what they were doing and others celebrated how they beat the system. It asks some interesting moral questions about the purpose of the lottery. If it exists to give working class people the chance to change their lives forever, is it wrong to have people with thousands to spare to use it to get more money? Of course, Beat the Lotto strongly leans in favour of what this syndicate was doing but the question does linger in the air.
While that’s a valid debate, the media’s vilification of them perfectly encapsulates how media worked in that era. How everything could be so easily scandalised to influence the public’s perception against a group of people. Blowing it so wildly out of proportion and trying to make it seem like they were doing something criminal, does certainly nudge you onto their side of this argument, if you weren’t already.
Another way it’s easy to get behind them is that the style Ross Whitaker employs is inherently charming. It’s very familiar but that doesn’t make it any less effective. It’s got great pacing, there’s a lot of character. It’s constantly moving but never feels rushed, the use of recreation adds a nice touch to capture the frenzy, and there’s a good mix of archive footage and current day talking heads. It arguably doesn’t go very far, it’s not that complicated of a story to tell but keeping itself to a tight hour and twenty five minutes means that doesn’t matter in the slightest.
Beat the Lotto is entertaining and captures a frenzied moment in time, how one group of people’s attempt to beat a flawed system and get one over on the government, captured a nation. It’s a folksy tale of a very specific cultural moment, that has a lot of personality. Whitaker does well to grasp onto how it reached such an unexpected height of fame and infamy. It’s easy watching, very enjoyable and surprisingly endearing.
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