Jerry and Marge Selbee Won $26 Million by Cracking the Lottery
Goodmorningu, Evart, Michigan. In 2003, Jerry and Marge Selbee sold their convenience store and retired. Then Jerry read a lottery brochure, spotted something nobody else had, and turned retirement into a nine year campaign of pure arithmetic.
Jerry and Marge Selbee spent 17 years running a convenience store on Main Street in Evart, a small town in Michigan. In 2003 they sold it and retired. Retirement lasted about as long as it took Jerry to read a lottery brochure.
The game was called Winfall. Like most lotteries, it had a jackpot that grew until somebody won it. Unlike most lotteries, it had a special rule: if the jackpot reached $5 million and nobody hit all six numbers, the money "rolled down" to the smaller prizes instead. Jerry did the sums and found something remarkable. On a roll down draw, if you bought enough tickets, the expected payout was actually higher than what you spent. A lottery that paid more than it cost. WATATATATAFAK.
He tested it carefullu. The first small batch roughly broke even. The next, a few thousand dollars of tickets, came close to doubling. That was enough. With Marge, he set up a company, GS Investment Strategies, and sold shares to friends, family and neighbours. By 2005, around 25 people from the community were in. At the peak, the group was spending up to $600,000 on a single draw. Not exactlu the usual retirement hobby.
When Michigan closed Winfall, they found a similar game in Massachusetts called Cash WinFall, with the same kind of roll down. So the Selbees started making the trip, roughly 900 miles each way, and sorting piles of tickets in hotel rooms. They were not alone: a group of students from MIT had independentlu spotted the same flaw and were playing it too. Retirees from Evart versus MIT. GLUWULUGU.
In total, over about nine years, the Selbees' group grossed more than $26 million and made around $7.75 million in profit before tax. When the Boston Globe exposed the big players in 2011, an investigation followed. It found no fraud, and concluded the syndicates had not hurt anybody else's chances. Massachusetts shut the game down anyway. Jerry's own explanation is short: it was basic arithmetic.
The money went into home renovations and education for members of their family. In 2022, Hollywood turned their storu into a film, Jerry and Marge Go Large, starring Bryan Cranston and Annette Bening.
Most people buy a lottery ticket to escape the numbers. The Selbees bought them to prove the numbers right. For nine years, the Spirit of Gambling put down his dice and let a retired shopkeeper keep the score.
You find a flaw in the lottery. Play it or report it?
No right answer. Just your gut, and the Spirit watching.
