This Mexican lottery heist was so wild that Netflix had to dramatize it

In 2012, an unusual, brazen $8 million lottery scam in Mexico vexed authorities and floored the nation. The scammers, who were working for the national lottery, launched the heist in plain sight on TV. And they almost got away with it. Almost.

Over a decade later, the drama has inspired a madcap Netflix heist series called “Me Late Que Si,” which is called “How to Win the Lottery” for English-speaking viewers. The 6-part series is based on the true story, though it's packed with creative liberties, twists, stakes, political satire, and absurdism that would rival a soap opera.

Melate y Revancha lottery

Melate y Revancha is the national lottery draw game of Mexico, akin to Powerball and Mega Millions in the United States. In Melate, seven numbers are drawn between 1 and 56, with six regular balls and one additional ball. Players can add an additional drawing, called Revancha, like Double Play in Powerball.

The jackpot starts at 30 million pesos, which is approximately $1.5 million. The amount accumulates and grows if nobody wins, while drawings continue at a twice-per-week clip. Odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 32,468,436.

By 2012, the real-life lottery had undergone a leadership change. Former director of the Institute of Security and Social Services for State Workers (ISSSTE) Jesús Villalobos was put in charge of the national game. He replaced most existing employees, and apparently put his attention toward politicking rather than drawing broadcast logistics.

This allowed the middle and working-class lottery employees to hatch a plan.

The real scheme

In “How to Win the Lottery,” each episode is prefaced with the message: “Nobody knows exactly how they did it.” The show is a dramatization that puts the pieces together and fills the voids. But we do know quite a bit about the real scheme.

The jackpot had grown to 120 million pesos in 2012, or $8 million. That’s when employees of Just Marketing, the vendor that produced the live Melate broadcast, decided to pre-tape the live draw. This gave the conspirators five hours to tell their loved ones the winning numbers, allowing them to buy tickets before they were officially announced.

Ultimately, about seven people were involved in the heist. This included the broadcast hostess Sara Solórzano, executives from Just Marketing, and officials from Pronósticos para la Asistencia Pública (Forecasts for Public Assistance), referred to as Pronósticos, which runs the lottery.

Few real consequences

In the real heist, they almost got away with it, until Annie Castillo, Technical and Legal Coordinator of Pronósticos, realized that family members of the employees had all won the prize. An investigation was launched, arrests were made, but for some reason, the conspirators didn't face major charges.

José Luis Jiménez, director of the Pronósticos lottery, who was widely considered the mastermind of the heist, died in 2023 before any charges were brought against him.

Sales of Melate tickets dropped by 25% in the aftermath of the scandal. Trust in the Mexican lottery slipped, but it has since recovered.

José breaks bad

The Netflix show “How to Win the Lottery” depicts the scandal from pre-conception to consequences, mainly from the viewpoint of a fictitious version of Jiménez.

In the show, José Luis Conejera (played by Alberto Guerra) has faced years of bad luck. As a wannabe race car driver, he suffered an injury that put an end to his dream. For 15 years, he’s been a lackey for Tarto (Christian Tappa), who runs the lottery as a cartoonishly corrupt version of Villalobos.

When José learns that Tarto and the political elite have been siphoning money for themselves from the lottery instead of giving it to important causes, he decides there's no point in being a good guy anymore. It's time to steal some luck.

He has a decent cause, though: his teenage daughter is also interested in race car driving, but he doesn't make enough money to support her ascent in the expensive sport. His brushes with risk-taking also seem to get his wife, Laura (Ana Brenda Contreras), turned on. So, he hatches the plan.

Though Jose's character nods to the Breaking Bad trope of dorky dad to criminal, he almost always feels like an ironclad hero with unimpeachable morals in the show.

Viewers will want him to win.

The conspirators have stories, too

The show spends time on various conspirators, too. Fictional or not, all of them have an urgent motive to get a ton of cash right away.

There's the broadcast hostess Lena (Majo Vargas), who is fighting for custody of her son and hoping to whisk him far away from his birth father. Two sleazy camera operators, Mario (Jero Medina) and Gilberto (Aldo Escalante), are short on funds as they build a beach development. Charly (Luis Alberti), a drug addict in recovery who safekeeps the raffle box and ball equipment, is taking care of his ailing father while handing over money to an unscrupulous, demanding pastor. Charly's “breaking bad” arc is even more fascinating than José's.

The stakes are high for everyone, and the pressure keeps turning up, up, and up under each one of them as the scheme plays out. This helps the story move quickly and suspensefully until the very last minute.

Is it worth watching?

There's no denying that the Melate heist is a great story that's ripe for a reenactment.

“How to Win the Lottery” is highly fictionalized, so anyone looking for an exact play-by-play of the real scheme and characters should lower their expectations. What viewers can expect is an over-the-top, fast-paced, funny, bingeable, and engaging experience all the way through.

Fans of the lottery - or any heist genre - will also enjoy the logistics, details, close calls, and inventiveness surrounding the scheme.

The fact that it really happened - kind of - is a huge bonus.