These were kids young enough to be the Selbees' grandchildren. The paper's reporting revealed that two groups were dominating Cash Winfall: the Selbee gang from Evart, Michigan, and their competition, a syndicate led by math majors from MIT, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Scott allen oversees the Globe's investigative reporters, known as the Spotlight team. Scott Allen: Smart people had figured out if I buy enough of these tickets, I'll always be a winner. Scott Allen of the Boston Globeīut in 2011, the Boston Globe got a tip and discovered that in certain Massachussetts locations, Cash Winfall tickets were being sold at an extraordinary volume. Jerry Selbee: And it gave you the satisfaction of being successful at something that was worthwhile to not only us personally but to our friends and our family. Jon Wertheim: So once there was a rolldown, on average, how much were you putting in play? Then they holed up, not in some fancy suite at the high rollers hotel, but in a room at the Red Roof Inn, sorting the tickets by hand for 10 hours a day, 10 days straight, not so much playing the lottery, as working it. That's when Jerry and Marge Selbee developed a routine they continued for the next six years, driving 900 miles to Massachusetts every time there was a rolldown and buying hundreds of thousands of tickets at two local convenience stores. How long did it take you this time to figure out that you could get a positive return here? I looked at the game and once I researched it, I got back with him and I said, we can play that game. Jerry Selbee: And so I got on the computer. Jerry Selbee: One of our players emailed me and he said "Massachusetts has a game called Cash Winfall. Jon Wertheim: You're talking about this as if it's the most obvious set of figures in the world Jerry Selbee: That's- yeah (laugh) a little over 80 percent isn't it? So I got $1,100 invested and I've got a $1,900 return. 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 knew I'd have either 18 or 19 3-number winners and that's 50 bucks each. I divided 1,100 by six instead of 57 because I did a mental quick dirty and I come up with 18. I said if I played $1,100 mathematically I'd have one 4-number winner, that's 1,000 bucks. Sound complicated? Well, it wasn't to Jerry.
Unlike the Mega Millions games you've probably heard of where the jackpot keeps building until someone hits all six numbers and wins the big prize, in Winfall, if the jackpot reached $5 million, and no one matched all six numbers, all the money 'rolled down' to the lower-tier prize winners, dramatically boosting the payouts of those who matched five, four or three numbers. That feature was called a "Rolldown", and the lottery announced when it was coming. Jon Wertheim: How long did you have the store? Jerry handled the liquor and cigarettes and Marge kept the books and made the sandwiches.
Together they raised six kids and ran a local convenience store on Main Street.
A single-stoplight factory-town that collapses in the folds of a map. Now Hollywood is callingįor years, high school sweethearts Jerry and Marge Selbee lived a quiet life in Evart, Michigan, population 1900. They didn't so much as beat the lottery odds as they figured them out. No, this is a ballad of a couple from small-town America who did something that most people only dream of. This is not a story, though, of a con, or a scam, or an inside job. Which is why investigators took note when a retired couple from Michigan, Jerry and Marge Selbee, made $26 million winning various state lottery games dozens of times. Because of these stakes, it's essential that, in both perception and reality, lotteries are truly games of chance, everyone entering with an equal opportunity to win. Over 25 states took in more from their lottery proceeds than from corporate income tax.
#WOMAN SPENT MONEY ON LOTTERY TICKETS STARTS GO FUND ME MOVIE#
Last year, Americans spent more than $80 billion playing state lotteries, that's around $250 for each citizen, more than what was spent on concerts, sporting events and movie tickets combined.
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