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Money: it’s like if bitcoin wasn’t a scam.\h
Invented around 3,000 BCE and adapted for the big\h\h

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screen in 2016, money has long been the number one\h
answer to the question, “how do you buy stuff?”\h\h

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Now, for most people, money is not free: if you\h
want to get, say, one dollar, you’ll typically\h\h

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have to pay about a dollar for it. But money can\h
be free if you belong to a few select groups: bar\h\h

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mitzvah boys, armed robbers, people with the last\h
name Walton, and people who are the Australian\h\h

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bartender Dan Saunders—a man who also, by the\h
way, has no licensable pictures on the internet,\h\h

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so for this video, we’ll be using the next best\h
thing: these pictures of an American Pianist also\h\h

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named Dan Saunders that I found on Getty Images.
One night in 2011, Dan was out drinking with his\h\h

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mates in his hometown of Wangaratta, when he\h
decided to pull some money out of an ATM to buy\h\h

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some grog. Now in order for this story to make\h
sense, it’s key to understand that Dan had two\h\h

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cards, and two accounts, with National Australia\h
Bank. One was a savings account, linked to a Visa\h\h

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debit card, that had $3 sitting in it. And one\h
was a credit account, linked to a Mastercard\h\h

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credit card, with a $1,000 credit limit.
Being the semi-responsible joey he was,\h\h

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Dan tried to find out the balance on his savings\h
account with his debit card, but the machine told\h\h

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him his balance was unavailable. Then, he decided\h
to transfer $200 from his credit account to his\h\h

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savings account. He put in his credit card,\h
punched in the transaction, but once he did,\h\h

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the machine flashed “transaction canceled’ and\h
spat out his card. But fueled with the courage\h\h

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of Vitamin B, Dan decided to try pulling out\h
the $200 from his savings account anyways,\h\h

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using his debit card. And it worked. Given\h
that Dan only had $3 or so bucks in his savings\h\h

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account before, he figured the transaction must\h
have gone through. So he tried again with $500.\h\h

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Then $600. And it kept working, well past his\h
$1,000 credit limit. The next morning, he woke\h\h

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up with $2,000 in his wallet, and assumed his\h
credit card was $2,000 in debt. But when he went\h\h

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to check his account, it listed no record of the\h
transaction. Dan had turned water into wine—and\h\h

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by water I mean nothing and by wine I mean money.
Dan didn’t know it at the time, but the reason\h\h

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this was working is because he’d done\h
the transfers between 1 and 3 am,\h\h

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which is when ATMs for National Australia Bank\h
go offline. So when he tried to transfer money\h\h

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from his credit card to his savings account,\h
the machine wasn’t able to check whether his\h\h

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credit card was actually able to send that much\h
money. It just blindly honored the transaction,\h\h

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crediting the money to his savings account. But,\h
the tricky part, which Dan would soon discover,\h\h

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is that the ATM would eventually realize that\h
it had mistakenly trusted the transaction,\h\h

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and it would undo it. But—and this\h
is key—that process took a full day.\h

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So Dan developed a system: every night, he\h
would double down on his transfers and stay\h\h

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one day ahead of the bank. So, for example,\h
on a Tuesday between 1-3am, Dan could add, say\h\h

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$10,000 to his savings account. During the day\h
on Tuesday, he could spend that $10,000 buying\h\h

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this 1996 kangaroo beanie baby that is actually\h
listed on ebay for $10,000. But then by Wednesday,\h\h

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his savings account would have figured out\h
the error, undone the $10,000 transfer,\h\h

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and the $10,000 he spent buying the beanie baby\h
would still be subtracted from his account,\h\h

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so his savings account would be negative $10,000.\h
So, to stay ahead of it, on Wednesday between\h\h

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1-3 am, Dan could transfer $20,000 to his\h
account. That way, during the day Wednesday,\h\h

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when the $10,000 transaction from Tuesday\h
morning is undone and taken from his account,\h\h

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it won’t matter, because that account now has an\h
additional $20,000 in it, which won’t disappear\h\h

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until Thursday. And then Dan just repeated and\h
repeated and repeated every day, increasing the\h\h

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amounts every time he spent money to stay ahead\h
of the bank, creating a kind of death spiral of\h\h

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money—which would also coincidentally be a great\h
tagline for our new channel Jet Lag: The Game.\h

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But, granted one shot, and one opportunity to\h
seize everything he ever wanted, Dan captured\h\h

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it. In four and a half months, he spent $1.6\h
million of the bank’s money: betting wildly in\h\h

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casinos, staying at the $2,000-a-night Emirates\h
resort, eating Mayura wagyu and beluga caviar,\h\h

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but also acting as a sort of Australian Robin\h
Hood—an Ostrich Bonnet if you will. He paid off\h\h

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his and his friends’ student loans, sent a woman\h
to Paris to learn French, tipped everyone $500,\h\h

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and even dropped $90,000 on a private\h
jet to take him and his mates to Bali.\h

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Now if there’s anything we’ve learned\h
from The Big Short, it’s that Brad Pitt\h\h

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is a character actor stuck in a leading man’s\h
body, and also that banks are dumb. You see,\h\h

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National Australia Bank never caught on to\h
what Dan was doing—the only calls he got were\h\h

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from the bank asking him to confirm that he had\h
made his purchases. Ultimately, Dan was caught,\h\h

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but only because he started feeling guilty, and\h
stopped the daily transfers. The dominos fell,\h\h

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the bank called him in, gave him a talking to, and\h
Dan waited for the coppas to arrest him. But two\h\h

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years passed and nobody came, seemingly because\h
publicly acknowledging the mistake would be worse\h\h

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for the bank than just eating the loss. So, in\h
total madlad form, Dan went on a press tour,\h\h

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appearing on news shows explaining what he did,\h
and essentially saying, “somebody please come\h\h

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arrest me.” Eventually his wish was granted and\h
he served one year in prison on fraud charges,\h\h

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and was ordered to pay back $200,000.
In a reddit AMA, when asked what he’d do\h\h

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differently, Dan said, “I don't second guess\h
things. I'd just do everything the same.”\h

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What would you do with infinite money? Well,\h
if you’re my friend, YouTuber Patrick Willems,\h\h

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you’d make an entire feature-length movie called\h
Night of the Coconut that’s available exclusively\h\h

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on Nebula, which is exactly what he did with that\h
arguably irresponsible budget Nebula gave him for\h\h

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it. The HAI writers, Ben and Adam, and I got to\h
go to the premiere of Night of the Coconut and\h\h

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we were blown away—it’s not only, like, a real\h
movie, it’s a good one, about a multiverse and\h\h

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an evil coconut trying to take over the world by\h
gaining clout, and it’s extremely funny and it’s\h\h

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got a whole musical number in it for some reason…\h
look, if you’re one of the 5% of our viewers who\h\h

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like our jokes, you’ll love Night of the Coconut.\h
The best way to get Nebula—which, of course, is\h\h

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the streaming service started by me and my creator\h
friends that also has a ton of original content\h\h

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I’ve made—is through the Nebula-CuriosityStream\h
bundle, where you also get a subscription to\h\h

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CuriosityStream, the incredible documentary\h
streaming service with, for example, the awesome\h\h

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six-part series “Inside the Mind of a Con Artist”\h
all for under $15 a year. Just click the button\h\h

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on-screen or go to curiositystream.com/HAI, and\h
you’ll be helping support HAI while you’re at it.