Except he had found a loophole.Īs it turned out, rolldowns would happen every six weeks.

Jerry told her he wasn't doing anything illegal – he was just playing the game the way it was meant to be played. One night, while sitting around a campfire, Jerry let Marge in on his secret. Next, he purchased $8,000 worth of tickets and nearly doubled his money. Sorting through 3,600 tickets took hours, he made a $2,700 profit. When a 'rolldown' was announced, he purchased $3,600 dollars in Winfall tickets. Though because the loophole logic was based on rudimentary arithmetic, he feared a lot of other people would figure it out, too. That meant his $1,100 investment would yield a $1,900 return, for a tidy profit of $800.Ħ4-year-old Jerry Selbee had a bachelor's degree in math, and he loved solving puzzles.

Jerry quickly calculated that if he spent $1,100 on 1,100 tickets, odds are he'd have one four-number winner that would pay out $1,000, and at least 18 or 19 three-number winners that paid $900. That meant the money rolled down and was split between winners who matched just five, four or three numbers. Unlike other lotteries that keep building until there was a winner, once the Winfall jackpot reached $5 million – and no one had matched all six numbers to win – a 'rolldown' would happen. He read it, and in less than three minutes, he spotted a loophole. One day in 2003, Jerry walked into the store they used to own and noticed a marketing brochure for a new state lottery called Winfall. They ran a convenience store for 17 years, then retired. Jerry and Marge Selbee lived in a small town in Michigan.

Michigan lottery numbers used