Michigan retirees Jerry and Marge Selby earned $26 million with a lottery math strategy

Retired couple Jerry and Marge Selby, from the small town of Ewart, Michigan, turned a chance encounter with a lottery flyer into a multimillion-dollar windfall by exploiting a mathematical edge in the game's rules. After years running a shop and raising six children, the pair expected quiet retirement — until Jerry, a trained mathematician, spotted a flaw in the new Winfall game in 2003.

How the "rolldown" created a predictable advantage

Jerry studied the rules and identified the game’s "rolldown" provision: if nobody won the top jackpot, the prize pool was redistributed among players who matched fewer numbers. He realized that by buying a very large number of tickets and allocating stakes correctly, the average returns over time would exceed the cost of play. His tests were concrete: he invested $3,600 and won $6,300; on a later trial he put in $8,000 and doubled the sum again.

When he explained the method to his wife, Marge replied: "It's strange that no one had thought of this before." The couple then formed G.S. Investment Strategies and recruited 25 friends and neighbors, each contributing $500. Over just 12 draws the group recorded seven-figure gains that helped many families in their community.

When Michigan discontinued the game, Jerry and Marge followed a similar game in Massachusetts called Cash Winfall. For the next six years they often drove nearly 1,450 kilometers to take part in the special roll-down drawings, sometimes working ten hours a day for ten days straight, manually sorting and checking thousands of tickets.

Their success prompted media attention and a state inquiry into possible wrongdoing. "We investigated that thoroughly, looking for corruption," said then chief inspector Greg Sullivan on the program "60 Minutes." Investigators found no fraud: the couple had no advance knowledge of winning numbers and had not cheated — they had simply exploited rules that were public and available to everyone.

Cash Winfall was eventually discontinued. Over nine years of play the Selby couple and their investment club amassed more than $26 million in gross winnings. They used the proceeds to renovate the family home and to fund education for their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Their story was dramatized on screen in the 2022 comedy film Jerry & Marge Go Large, starring Bryan Cranston and Annette Bening.

Photo: Ilustracija (AI)