Lotto king Carlo Massetti: Inside the rise and fall of the five-time winner - as he reveals his secrets to collecting millions - and his one big regret
- Five time Lotto winner's wild life from luxury to a prison cell
- Carlo Massetti reveals how he won $2.5m from same newsagent
- Mad romance led woman to claim luxury world tour was a 'kidnap'
Australia's most notorious Lotto winner has opened up about his wild roller-coaster life - and revealed his tips for winning millions.
Carlo Massetti is a five-time Lotto winner who went from incredible wealth to the despair of sharing a jail cell with a paedophile.
Mr Massetti told Daily Mail Australia he is now enjoying a quieter existence after the chaos of the past, which involved a volatile relationship with a young lover who sensationally claimed their first-class world trip was 'a kidnap'.
The former funeral home undertaker pocketed millions in an astonishing winning streak - once buying three winning tickets in ten days from the same Sydney beachside newsagent.
But most of his winnings are now gone, gobbled up by legal fees and the tax office.
'These days I get on with life the best I can,' he told Daily Mail Australia.
And Mr Massetti has no desire to have any contact with his ex-girlfriend Danielle Prebble, who is back in the news after being charged with drug-driving and receiving stolen property.
Ms Prebble made national headlines after Mr Massetti was dramatically released from prison into her arms outside Sydney's Waverley Local Court in 2019.
'We no longer have anything to do with each other and, of course, I blame myself but it cost me my marriage and the very nice life I was having.'
Mr Massetti had a tumultuous relationship with Danielle Prebble (pictured), which he said was now over and he no longer had any contact with the 33-year-old - who is now facing charges
Mr Massetti said he has chosen to come forward about his life after years of controversial media reports, saying 'my life these days is more peaceful where I can focus on my health and put the past behind almost like a closed book'.
Mr Massetti's Lotto streak began back in 2012, when he won two big Lotto payouts and quit his job as a funeral home undertaker in Bondi, in Sydney's eastern suburbs.
The New Zealand-born Australian resident had bought Lotto tickets from a newsagent at Westfield Bondi Junction using the same formula that eventually would make him a five-time winner.
Mr Massetti's winning Lotto formula involved spending about $5,000 to $8,000 with a system entry ticket, choosing eight to nine numbers and nine to ten lines of them, just using 'the numbers spit out of the machine'.
Carlo mostly didn't go in for massive Powerball draws of $40million to $100million, instead choosing the smaller-jackpot Monday to Wednesday or Saturday draws when fewer people were entering.
In 2018, he then shot to stardom, winning $2.5million from two separate Lotto draws within one week in May of that year - and just 12 days later won another $48,000 in a Powerball draw.
Carlo Massetti says he has some regrets about his wild affair with Danni Prebble (above the couple together in happier times) but he no longer has any contact with her. Five-time Lotto winner Massetti reaped $2.55m from lottery tickets.
Ms Prebble and Mr Massetti are seen in Dubai during the round-the-world trip on which she later accused him of having 'kidnapped' her - but her allegations were never taken any further
His new-found wealth poisoned relationships with some 'friends', who 'were obviously annoyed and disappointed' he didn't shout them a drink or give them one single cent'.
Before he met Ms Prebble, he had been married to a woman from an exclusive family of billionaires who were 'friends with the Packers and the Murdochs'.
He lived in a mansion on the Gold Coast and his Sydney mates included disgraced former detective Roger Rogerson and Brad Cooper, the former playboy executive jailed over a $11million bribery and fraud scheme in the HIH Insurance collapse.
Mr Massetti said he met disgraced former detective Roger Rogerson (pictured) in 2010 and found him to be unfailingly polite and friendly. He was distressed when Rogerson was charged with murdering a drug dealer and locked up for life
I met Roger in 2010 and we'd always keep in touch and meet up for a beer and he'd give me good advice,' said Mr Massetti, who said he was sad Rogerson was caught up in the 2014 murder of drug dealer Jamie Gao, for which he is now serving life.
He was on cordial terms with Ron Medich - now also in jail serving 39 years for the 2009 contract murder of Michael McGurk - who he used to meet at Catalina in Rose Bay.
Mr Massetti said he owned the luxury Boheme apartment complex in Bondi Beach, where a young Adam Cranston 'rented a car space... always a flash car every week, it was not a problem for him to pay $1,000 a month rent for the space'.
Cranston, the son of a former Australian Tax Office executive, is now behind bars awaiting sentence for the Plutus Payroll conspiracy, in which he, his sister Lauren and others siphoned $105million from taxpayers in one of Australia's most serious tax frauds.
In 2016, Mr Massetti was about to make 'one of the major mistakes of my life - I ballsed up my marriage, which I regret to this day'.
He had met and fallen for Danielle Prebble and their tumultuous relationship would see him accused of setting her on fire and 'kidnapping her' when they took a first-class round-the-world trip from Sydney to Hong Kong and Dubai using some of his Lotto winnings.
In the same year as Mr Massetti's 2018 winning Lotto streak, police alleged he assaulted Ms Prebble seven times, taking him into custody twice for purported breaches.
'It was very, very scary,' he said.
'I was in protective custody because of the high-profile case of the Lotto win,' he said, adding that prison authorities feared he could become an extortion target behind bars.
He was granted bail just before Christmas 2018 after six weeks in prison, eventually resuming contact with Ms Prebble, which eventually led to 'another altercation' and his further imprisonment - this time at the feared Parklea Correctional centre in north-western Sydney.
This time, Mr Massetti was given a cellmate in their protection wing, a man he found 'quiet and polite' who was 'very pleasant', enjoyed a lot of reading and was frequently visited by his wife.
'You don't talk about [inmates'] crimes when you're in jail,' Mr Massetti said.
It was only later that Carlo Massetti would learn his mild-mannered cellmate was in fact one of the state's worst pedophile offenders: Bryan Grange is serving 30 years for sexually abusing an eight-week-old baby and two girls under five.
Grange was recently denied an appeal against the severity of his sentence and three judges of the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal found Grange 'engaged in deliberate, predatory and callous conduct of the most serious kind'.
Mr Massetti swapped a luxury life in a Gold Cost mansion (above) for a wild romance and ended up instead occupying a prison cell in Sydney's notorious Parklea jail. He later found out his 'quiet and polite' cellmate at Parklea prison, Bryan Grange, was one of the state's worst pedophile offenders, serving 30 years for sexually abusing a baby and girls under five
Danielle Prebble before the court on charges of drug-driving on cocaine, methamphetamine and cannabis, and other allegations of receiving stolen property and possessing car number plates
Ms Prebble is accused of driving in daylight hours on Sydney streets while having cocaine, ice and cannabis present in her system
Ms Prebble had five years of 'crazy love' with Mr Massetti, but it all ended in tears
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