Jerry Selbee walked into his old convenience store in 2003 and picked up a brochure for a new lottery game. Within three minutes of reading it, he had discovered a mathematical loophole that would make him $26 million richerover the next nine years.
The retired math teacher from small-town Michigan wasn't looking to get rich quick. He was just curious about the new game called Winfall. But as he read the fine print, something didn't add up - and that's exactly what made him millions.
Unlike regular lotteries where jackpots keep growing, Winfall had a "rolldown" feature. When the jackpot hit $5 million with no winner, instead of continuing to grow, all that money got distributed to people who matched just three, four, or five numbers.
Jerry did the math in his head. If he bought $1,100 worth of tickets during a rolldown, he was virtually guaranteed to have one four-number winner ($1,000 payout) and about 18 three-number winners ($50 each). That meant a $1,900 return on his $1,100 investment - an $800 profitwithalmost zero risk.
He tested his theory with $3,600 worth of tickets and won $6,300. Then he bet $8,000 and nearly doubled his money. The math worked perfectly.
Jerry and his wife Marge turned lottery playing into a business. They formed a corporation, invited family and friends to invest, and began buying thousands of ticketsevery timea rolldown was announced - which happened every six weeks.
The process was exhausting. Lottery machines could only print 10 tickets at a time, so Jerry and Marge stood at convenience stores for hours, purchasing tens of thousands of tickets. Then they'd spend days in their living room sorting through piles of ticketsby handlooking for winners.
When Michigan shut down Winfall after 12 weeks, Jerry discovered Massachusetts had an identical game called Cash Winfall. For the next six years, the couple drove 700 miles to Massachusetts every rolldown period, sometimes spending $720,000on360,000 tickets in a single trip.
They weren't the only ones who figured it out. A group of MIT students discovered the same loophole and formed their own syndicate, betting $17-18 million over seven years. But the Selbees got there firstandplayed the system longer.
The Boston Globe finally investigatedthe suspicioushigh-volume ticket sales in Massachusetts. Authorities launched an investigation expecting to find organized crime or corruption, but discovered only math nerds who had legally exploited a poorly designed game.
Massachusetts shut down Cash Winfall in 2012, ending the Selbees' incredible run. In nine years, they had grossed over $26 millionin winningsfor a net profit of $7.75 million - allcompletely legal.
That three-minute math calculation in a small-town convenience store had turned into the most successful lottery strategy in American history.