MATHS TEACHER FINDS A WAY TO BEAT THE LOTTERY
Hello Millionaire, In today's video, we are looking at the fantastic story of a regular
math teacher who found a way to beat the lottery, not just one time but dozens of times, and
became incredibly wealthy in the process while he helped his loved ones do the exact same
thing.
Buckle up because this story is exciting.
First, let me ask you a question...
Did you know that about half of Adult Americans play the state lottery? Also, did you know
that the chances of winning the lottery are so low that you have a better chance of getting
struck by lightning while riding a Ferris wheel in the middle of a Terrorist attack?
I know I might sound ridiculous at this point, but it is true. Despite the slim chances of
winning, people still play the lottery.
But why is that?
The short answer is, The American Dream... The American Dream means a lot of different
things to different people but at the core of it is financial riches. People don't want
to keep stressing about money. They want their own house, to travel around the world and
most of all, they want to retire early and wealthy. So, most of them try the lottery;
they put their hopes on luck and chance, hoping that something clicks and they win big.
Now, what if I told you that someone decided to play the lottery in an entirely different
way some years ago. This person wasn't going to leave it up to chance, so he discovered
an intelligent way to play the lottery and increase his chances of winning. This mathematician
found a loophole in the system that even his other mathematical colleagues hadn't figured
out...
Here is the fascinating story of Jerry Selby, the Math teacher who found a mathematical
way to beat the lottery.
For Jerry Selby, winning the lottery was n't a dream that he had deliberately fostered.
He and his wife, Marge Selby lived in a tiny town in Michigan called Evatt that had a population
of 900 people. They married there, had six kids, and operated a convenience store where
Marge would create the most delicious sandwiches while Jerry handled the liquor and cigarettes.
Eventually, when Jerry was 62 and Marge was 63, they decided to sell the store and relax
in their homes, watching TV and enjoying their lives of quiet and content retirement. Before
that time, they had been working day in-day out at their store for 17 years. This retirement,
no matter how unglamorous it was, was well-deserved.
Things would take an exciting turn when in 2003, an unusual lottery game, Windfall, was
released. Jerry caught an ad for the lottery game while watching TV, and his mathematical
brain immediately got into gear.
The rules of the game were pretty straightforward. First, a player had to pick six numbers between
1 and 49. If they guessed two, three, four, or five numbers, then they would get a prize
in increasing amounts. If they guessed six, then they would win the $2 million prize.
Nothing different so far, right? Well, keep watching
Jerry had always been a natural at math all his life and even had a masters in the discipline.
He realized in a couple of minutes that there was an exploitable hole in the lottery's logic.
One significant error that the State lottery had made was that they listed the odds of
winning that were associated with each combination of numbers.
Lottery shows like Mega Millions have the prize money go up when no one wins the jackpot;
however, Windfall was different because the exact opposite was the case. The jackpot would
roll down when no one won, and people with fewer correct numbers would win. Of course,
it was more of a compensation win and nowhere near the grand prize but at least, those that
invested and got fewer numbers got some value on their investment.
Jerry studied those winning odds and the timing of those Roll Downs. He realized that, statistically,
a single one-dollar lottery ticket was worth more than one dollar in those final weeks.
Pretty easy right? Well, It depends, keep watching...
While this didn't mean anything to the average observer, and most people didn't see anything
special about the whole situation, Jerry could see the millions that could be made. At first,
he thought other math savvy people would have already gotten in on the loophole. However,
that didn't stop him from getting to work.
When the first Roll down was announced, Jerry went out and bought $3600 worth of tickets.
Guess what; he got almost double what he invested; a sweet sum of $6300. His calculations were
correct and gradually paying off. After this, he decided to purchase another $8,000 worth
of tickets, and he got double the amount once again. After experimenting twice, he informed
his wife that he had cracked the lottery and had been putting thousands of dollars from
their retirement savings into it.
Marge was initially skeptical about this idea; her husband thought of using their entire
savings on the lottery. It was insane, but after a few days of urging and explanations,
Marge agreed.
At this point, Jerry was quite puzzled that no one had caught into the trend. Why had
no one discovered the loop?
This thought would be on his mind as he kept investing more and more money until he could
make a small fortune.
After this, he started a company called the GS Investment Strategies. In one of his earliest
and most significant bets, Jerry put in $515,000 and got a return of $853,000. After this,
he sold shares in the company to friends and family and started giving them massive returns
on their investments. These were the people that trusted him enough to put down money
into this system he had created.
Soon, the town was swimming in some Hollywood-plotline-like fortune. One of Jerry's friends was able to
put three of his kids through school and one through law school. In 2005, just two years
after the game was released, there were 25 members in Jerry's lottery club, and funny
enough, all of them were winners. The members were as diverse as they came. There was a
factory manager, a bank manager, and even a police officer.
Although this was an incredibly fantastic run, we know nothing lasts forever, right?
Here is where everything started to shift. Keep watching...
Unsurprisingly, the State closed down Windfall, blaming it on a lack of sales. Later, one
of the members of his Lottery club informed him of a similar game in Massachusetts. When
Jerry checked it up, he realized that it was true, and it only took him 10 minutes to figure
out a solution for the game that would give them a guaranteed win.
So what did Jerry and his jolly Lottery heist members do?
Well, they began a six-year process of throwing in cash and yielding.
Jerry and his wife, Marge, would drive for hours to Massachusetts, a 900-mile journey
whenever there was a roll down. They'd walk around and drive while buying hundreds of
thousands of tickets. It took a lot of effort and became like a profession. Sometimes, they'd
work 10 hours a day but wouldn't still get all the tickets that they wanted. They saved
millions of losing tickets just in case anyone started an investigation on their operation.
It is important to note at this point that what they were doing wasn't illegal. They
were playing a game, and for any authority to understand that, they had to have proof,
so that was why the couple kept all the losing tickets. Unfortunately, after a while, a few
people started getting interested in the couple.
Boston Globe started sniffing on their trail. They received an anonymous tip that someone
had been purchasing fortunate winning tickets at incredibly high volumes in Massachusetts.
Now, this is where things got a little more interesting. Keep watching...
An investigator from the Boston Globe discovered that there were actually two groups of people
finding their way around the Massachusetts Lottery system; the Selby couple and... wait
for it... MIT.
Yes, some students at MIT had figured out what Jerry had figured and had invested heavily
in the scheme. They had been able to gather enough money to bet millions over the span
of 7 years, and in the end, they had amassed 3.5 million dollars in profits. Of course,
when the story got out, the game was shut down effectively, and an investigation began
almost immediately.
The state inspector general and his team searched for a scam, any sort of corruption that would
nail the heisting lottery team, but they found none. The inspector would eventually admit
defeat and marvel at the genius of an old retiree who could pull himself along with
family and friends to wealth. Jerry Selby would marvel at the fact that no one figured
out the loophole throughout its nine years run except, of course, the students from MIT.
Jerry Selby's company would make $29 million over the span of 9 years and has since given
most of the money to his kids and grandkids. He also renovated his house to his dream taste,
and he still hangs out with his friends from the heisting days. Ever since the fortunate
incident, Jerry has gone from obscurity to extraordinary wealth to media runs to selling
his story to Hollywood. His story is proof that there are many paths to the American
Dream.
Thanks for watching. Don't forget to Like, share, and subscribe. See you next time.