Primo appuntamento tra Carmine e Maria al ristorante

What does “ho fatto tredici” mean in Italian?

On this Italian dating show, a hopeful contestant says se trovo un’altra persona così, ho fatto tredici — “if I find someone else like that, I’ve hit the jackpot.” Fare tredici, “to make thirteen,” borrows its meaning from Totocalcio, Italy’s national football pools bet, where correctly predicting all thirteen match results won the top prize.

Totocalcio launched in 1946, and from 1951 “fare tredici” quickly outgrew the betting slip to become shorthand for any stroke of extraordinary luck — landing a dream job, acing an exam, or, as here, meeting the right person. Unlike much of the West, Italians treat thirteen as a lucky number precisely because of this jackpot association.