So far we’ve featured one episode on winning the lottery that showed us that suddenly becoming
a multi-millionaire can be an absolute curse.
The people we discussed had dreamed of riches, but in the end it led to their ruin.
Still, we’d like to think that many of you would go on to live a wonderful life after
collecting your massive check.
You’d sail into the sunset, pockets full of gold, and never worry about money again.
That’s the dream, and that’s why so many people play the lottery.
According to a Gallop Poll in 2016, about half of adult Americans play the state lottery
and many of those were classed as low-income families or individuals.
In fact, it’s said in all, Americans spend about $80 billion on state lotteries in a
year, which works out to about $250 a person.
This just shows you how desperate people are to get their hands on a windfall.
But, you all know the chance of winning the big prize is low, with the website The Balance
saying in 2018 that the odds of you winning either the Mega Millions or the Powerball
are about 175 million to one.
Yep, you’ve all heard this before but we’ll say it again.
You have more chance of being struck by lightning.
CBS news reported that your chance of being hit by a bolt in any given year is about 1
in 960,000.
Your odds of being struck twice in an entire lifetime if you live until the average age
are about one in nine million.
This shows how hard it is to get your hands on the big prize.
If you’re in the USA you have more chance of being bitten by a shark, being seriously
injured while on an amusement park ride, dying in an act or terrorism, and much more chance
of being mauled by a tetchy bear.
We think you get the picture.
But what if you had a hack, a system, a way of lessening those odds?
Is that possible?
And if it was possible, wouldn’t all great mathematical minds and members of the Mafiosi
have achieved a win?
Welcome to the story of Jerry and Marge Selbee.
This couple were in love in school and they are still in love now as they enjoy their
Autumn years.
They have lived in a very small town in Michigan called Evart for many years.
They had six kids and ran a convenience store and were well-known to the other 1900 inhabitants
of this town.
The American news media told us that Marge worked magic making sandwiches at the store
while Jerry took care of vice in liquor and cigarettes.
She was 62 and he was 63 when they decided they’d had enough and sold the store.
What was their plan?
They said it was just to put their feet up, relax, catch up on some TV and take it easy.
They hadn’t even taken a day off, or at least closed the store, in 17 years.
This was a deserved retirement, and they were certainly not planning on becoming multi-millionaires.
one fine day Jerry noticed a new lottery game called “Winfall.”
He later told the media that he’d always been good at math and had in his younger years
gotten a degree in the subject.
When he looked at this game he immediately had one of those great Eureka moments.
“I read it and by the time I was out here I knew what the potential migThen ht be,”
he told CBS news in 2019.
The year he made his fateful discovery was 2003.
So, his discovery didn’t come by months of investigation.
He said he realized after a mere three minutes or so that there was a loophole in this lottery,
or what he called a “special feature.”
He explained that with a lottery such as the Mega Millions the prize money goes up when
no one wins the jackpot.
The difference with Winfall was that when no one took the big prize the jackpot rolled
down, so the people with fewer correct numbers won.
The prize wasn’t as big of course, but at least the people who had gotten fewer numbers
correct all got a decent payout.
To you and me, to most people, we might not see anything special about this.
We certainly might not be thinking that millions of dollars are coming our way.
But old Jerry was a smart cookie and he immediately spotted a way to crack this lottery.
We are going to let Jerry explain his system to you because he can do that clearer than
we can.
This is what he told the American news media: “Here's what I said.
I said if I played $1,100 mathematically I'd have one 4-number winner, that's 1,000 bucks.
I divided 1,100 by six instead of 57 because I did a mental quick dirty and I come up with
18.
So I knew I'd have either 18 or 19 3-number winners and that's 50 bucks each.
At 18 I got $1,000 for a 4-number winner, and I got 18 3-number winners worth $50 each,
so that's 900 bucks.
So I got $1,100 invested and I've got a $1,900 return.”
That’s about an 80 percent profit on his investment.
Now, while his system might sound a little complicated to some, Jerry said it is actually
very basic arithmetic.
For that reason, his first thought was, hmm, if I have worked that out then a whole load
of other math-savvy people must have also figured it out.
But you know what?
They hadn’t.
When the first roll-down was announced he went out and bought $3,600 worth of tickets.
He got back $6,300.
He then put on another $8,000 and got pretty much double that amount back.
Jerry must have been laughing all the way to the bank at this point.
He then told his wife he had been putting thousands of their retirement savings into
the lottery, adding that there was no risk because he had cracked it.
She wasn’t even surprised, saying when he told her it all made perfect sense.
The only thing that really confused Jerry was why no one else had worked it out.
He just kept doing what he had been doing, but investing more and more money, so much
so that he started a company called G.S. Investment Strategies.
In an interview with CBS he showed the journalist details of every win, pointing out one big
one where he had bet $515,000 and turned it into $853,000.
He then sold shares in the company to friends and family and started giving them back massive
returns on their investments.
Most of these people, besides family, were the other small town inhabitants they had
know for many years.
It was as if money was raining on the town.
Jerry explained to them the math behind it and they also told the media it made perfect
sense to them.
They all did very well out of it, with one of Jerry’s friends saying, “It helped
me put three kids through school and one through law school.
So it was quite beneficial to me.”
By 2005, Jerry had 25 members of his lottery club, and they were all winners.
Some of those people were police, a factory manager and a bank manager.
But then Michigan suddenly closed down the game saying lack of sales was to blame.
It was game over, and we all know that good things don’t always last…
But then the sun shone again over this little town.
One of Jerry’s group members told him that there was a game in Massachusetts that had
quite similar odds.
Jerry told the media, “So I got on the computer.
I looked at the game and once I researched it, I got back with him and I said, we can
play that game.”
Indeed he could, and he said it only took him about 10 minutes to find the solution
to guaranteed winning in that game.
The group started throwing cash at Jerry again.
For six whole years Jerry and Marge would drive 900 miles (1,448km) to Massachusetts
when they saw that there was a rolldown.
They’d walk and drive about all day buying hundreds of thousands of tickets.
Just doing that took effort and the couple said it became more like a job, sometimes
working 10 hours a day.
They saved millions of losing tickets just in case anyone investigated them.
What they were doing was not illegal; they were just playing the game, but they needed
proof of that.
The couple also said they didn’t mind at all the long drives and the hard work, only
because it always led to their friends and family winning.
It was all worth it.
And then in 2011 The Boston Globe seemed to be on to them.
It had received a tip off that someone or some people had been buying certain lottery
tickets in an incredibly high volume all at certain places in Massachusetts.
The funny thing was, the Globe not only figured out that if you bought enough of these tickets
for that particular game you’d be guaranteed a win, but the investigator discovered there
were two groups of people doing this.
The reporter saw that one of those syndicates was the Selbee couple, but their competition
was none other than the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Well, some students there.
Those students, that didn’t have too much disposable income as is often the case with
those at university, got a few of their friends to start investing in the scheme.
They actually got enough cash together to bet millions and over seven years and at the
end they had amassed around $3.5 million in profits.
When the story broke, the game was closed down immediately and an investigation happened,
led by the then-state inspector general.
He told the press his team looked hard for some kind of corruption, some form of scam,
anything illegal, but nothing illegal had occurred.
“I was dumbfoundely amazed that these math-nerd geniuses had found a way legally to win a
state lottery and make millions from it,” he later said.
Over nine years that company the Selbee’s had founded made around $26 million gross.
Most of the cash they made went on their kids, grandkids and future great grandkids, but
they also spent some of the cash renovating their house.
The media reported that their little gang of winners still hang out together, but these
days it’s mostly when they bet a few dollars playing poker together.
On those nights Marge is said to cook-up one of her famous chicken pot pies.
To this day Jerry says the only thing that really amazes him is that no one else figured
it out, or at least until the MIT students did.
They couple has warmed the hearts of the American public as well as impressing the press.
They’ve been called The Lottery Hackers, been interviewed on 60 Minutes and it seems
that their story might become a Hollywood movie.
What do you think about this couple?
Do you think the method was as basic as Jerry said?
If it was, how come no one else figured it out?
Tell us your answers in the comments.
Also, be sure to check out our other video Thief Who Hijacked A Plane and Stole A Million
Dollars.
Thanks for watching, and as always, don’t forget to like, share and subscribe.
See you next time.