Jerry and Marge Selbee, a retired couple from Evart, Michigan, successfully exploited a mathematical loophole in state lottery games to gross and net nearly $8 million in profit over nine years. Their operation was entirely legal and relied on "basic arithmetic" rather than luck or fraud. 1. The Mathematical Loophole: The "Rolldown"
: Jerry calculated that during a rolldown, the expected value of a $1 ticket rose above $1. By buying tickets in massive quantities—often $600,000 or more per event—he could mathematically guarantee a positive return.
: The process was grueling, involving driving across state lines, spending days printing hundreds of thousands of tickets, and manually sorting them for winners. Jerry and Marge Go Large
The operation was eventually exposed in 2011 by a Boston Globe investigation, which discovered the Selbees and a separate syndicate of MIT students were dominating the game.
The report below covers both the real-life events of and the 2022 film adaptation, Jerry and Marge Go Large . Executive Summary: The Selbee Lottery Venture Jerry and Marge Selbee, a retired couple from
In 2003, Jerry Selbee, a math degree holder and former convenience store owner, discovered a flaw in a new Michigan lottery game called .
The couple did not keep the discovery to themselves. They formed a corporation, , and invited family, friends, and neighbors to invest. The Mathematical Loophole: The "Rolldown" : Jerry calculated
: When Michigan discontinued the game, the Selbees found a similar one in Massachusetts called Cash Winfall and continued their operation there for six more years. 2. GS Investment Strategies