Elderly Couple Finds Lottery Loophole, Legally Wins $26 Million Over Nine Years And Is (probably) Having A Movie Made About Them

I’m well aware that the above video is fourteen minutes long, and I’m telling you to watch the whole thing. If you don’t want to here’s the  long and short of it: Jerry and Marge Selbee figured out how to legally beat the lottery and got rich as fuck doing it. Aka they lived the dream. Twenty-six-million dollars over nine years all because Jerry has what he calls, “a “head for math.”

Without getting too into it, he figured out that in certain games (Win Fall) once the lottery hits five-million dollars, the prize money rolls down and is distributed amongst people who hit five, four, and three of the winning numbers, thus dramatically increasing their chances of winning a prize.

Here’s how Jerry explained it:

“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.”

I’m not going to pretend like I have a firm grasp on his strategy, but it worked. Because every time the lottery would hit a roll down, he and Marge would buy hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of tickets and always win more money than they invested. 50-60% more on average. He was winning so much that he started a corporation that he sold shares in to his friends and family so they could get in on the action. Here are some of his biggest investors: two of his buddies at the local diner.

But that’s not even the coolest part. Every time a game would come, Jerry and his wife would hold up in a local hotel room like a couple of crooks, going through all their tickets until they found the winners. Sometimes for TEN hours a day. Here’s what Marge had to say about it.

Jon Wertheim: It’s fun for you guys?

Marge Selbee: It’s fun.

Jerry Selbee: It’s fun doing it.

Marge Selbee: You get a high on it.

It was “fun” for her. Fun. The only other people who figured out how to beat the game were a group of math students at MIT. The whole thing is fascinating and not funny at all because I wasn’t the guy who figured out how to do it. They recently sold their story, so it appears a movie is in the works.

I don’t know when it’ll come out, but maybe they’ll cast Zac Efron to play Jerry. Regardless, it’s a super interesting watch if you have the time.