The story of how a syndicate of amateur mathematicians and professional gamblers set out to outfox the National Lottery in 1992 is jackpot documentary material, and director Ross Whitaker does the tale justice with the charming Beat the Lotto (RTÉ One, Monday, 9.35pm).

It’s a heist flick in miniature – Ocean’s 11 with George Clooney and Brad Pitt in Vegas replaced by middle-aged Irish men filling in Lotto cards in dingy back rooms in the grey, grim era of pre-Celtic Tiger Ireland.

And how grim those days were: everyone is dressed like a bachelor in a John B Keane play, and the gleam that flickers in the eyes of the “syndicate” members trying to game the lottery is mingled with desperation. To those with no hope, the prospect of pulling one over on the Lottery with a get-rich-quick scheme was both a punt too good to turn down and, just as importantly, an escape hatch from the sheer drudgery of an Ireland that was still essentially an impoverished basket case.

[ The Irish syndicate that beat the Lotto: ‘It wasn’t illegal to do what they did’Opens in new window ]

“People forget how bad it was,” recalls journalist Lise Hand. “It was such a different country. It was a miracle to have a job at all.”

Destitute and dysfunctional, Ireland in 1992 was caught between a bleak past and a more prosperous future. In that gap, amateur maths whizz and former stamp dealer Stefan Klincewicz saw an opening: if he and his co-conspirators filled in every possible Lotto combination, they were, by their reckoning, more or less guaranteed a generous return on their investment.

How could they fail? The answer was that the National Lottery, which, as is often the case when the Irish establishment is poked out of its torpor, went after them with a vengeful fury. Klincewicz and his gang were not breaking any law – but they were breaching the “spirit” of the Lottery, and so they had to be stopped.

It’s a gripping tale, and gains added texture through its portrayal of a country that bore at best a passing resemblance to a rational, functioning state. The crazy 1980s – of moving statues, Charles Haughey’s GUBU speech, Shergar’s kidnapping and three governments in 18 months – had not quite faded away. Ireland at that time was still a place where a chancer with a dream might take on the system. Enter Klincewicz, the Cork-born son of a Polish migrant in need of a fresh start after his stamp business collapsed and thought the Lotto might be a lucrative avenue for his way with numbers.

The Lottery – headed by the charismatic Ray Bates – was dead against it and started to shut down Lotto machines targeted by the syndicate. But Bates did not appreciate that, in the Ireland of 1992, finding a way around the rules was often the only way people could get by: the syndicate were not villains violating some sacred element of Irish life, but chancers driving a cattle truck through a loophole.

They were “lovable rogues who had bested the lawman”, says Mark Little, later to establish social media news service Storyful, but then a rookie RTÉ reporter. “There was a little element maybe we were witnessing a bit of a caper. Fellahs going out on a bit of a limb to get one over on an institution.”

There’s a bittersweet ending. Klincewicz’s number came up, but he was one of three winners, meaning he had to split the jackpot and the syndicate’s winnings were much reduced.

We don’t hear what happened next – it would be illuminating to learn what this cabal of punters are up to today. But this is an endearing profile of a country that was in many ways a slow motion disaster and of the hustlers and gamblers who tried to bend the system and almost succeeded. It could not possibly happen in Ireland today – and in that lies the charm of the whole thing.