Jerry and Marge Selbee: The Couple Who Beat the Lottery Legally

Jerry and Marge Selbee are the retired Michigan couple who legally won roughly $27 million in state lottery games by spotting a math flaw in the rules and playing it, over and over, for nearly a decade. They did not hack anything. They bought ordinary tickets at ordinary prices, at the exact moments when the published payout structure temporarily turned in a buyer’s favor.

The short version: in 2003, Jerry Selbee noticed that a Michigan game called Winfall paid out its jackpot money differently than every other lottery. When nobody hit all six numbers and the prize pool reached a set ceiling, the money “rolled down” to smaller prize tiers instead of growing. On those specific drawings, a large enough block of tickets was likely to return more than it cost.

Jerry and Marge Selbee turned that observation into a registered company, brought in family and neighbors, and kept playing until state officials shut the games down. According to reporting by CBS News on 60 Minutes, the couple grossed more than $27 million in winning tickets across nine years. No one was ever charged with anything. Here is what actually happened, and what came after.

Who Jerry and Marge Selbee Are

Gerald “Jerry” Selbee and his wife Marge lived in Evart, Michigan, a small town in the middle of the state. Jerry holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Western Michigan University, a detail confirmed by Western Michigan University’s own alumni coverage. Before the lottery story, the couple ran a convenience store in Evart, which they had sold before Jerry made his discovery.

They were not gamblers by temperament and were not wealthy. CBS News reported that the couple were already retired when the whole thing started. That ordinariness is a large part of why the story traveled: this was arithmetic done on the back of a brochure, not a trading algorithm.

The Michigan Loophole Jerry and Marge Selbee Found in 2003

As reported by CBS News, Jerry walked into the store he used to own in 2003 and saw a marketing brochure for a new Michigan Lottery game called Winfall. He read the prize rules and, by his own account to 60 Minutes, understood the flaw in under three minutes.

Most lottery jackpots roll up — no winner means a bigger jackpot next time. Winfall did the opposite past a threshold. Once the jackpot climbed to $5 million with no six-number winner, the money rolled down and was divided among players who matched five, four, or three numbers, briefly inflating those smaller prizes far above normal.

The math Jerry described to CBS News was blunt. Buy 1,100 tickets at $1 each on a rolldown drawing and you would expect, on average, one four-number winner paying about $1,000 plus roughly 18 or 19 three-number winners paying around $900 total — about $1,900 back on $1,100 spent.

That edge only existed on rolldown drawings, and only if you bought in volume. Small buys were still a coin flip. Jerry and Marge Selbee tested it with $3,600 of their own money, then went bigger.

How Jerry and Marge Selbee Built a Legal Betting Company

Rather than risk everything themselves, the couple formed a company called GS Investment Strategies LLC and sold shares to friends, family, and neighbors in Evart at $500 apiece. Reporting by CBS News and the CBC put the group at roughly two dozen partners. Profits were divided by share.

The work itself was tedious rather than glamorous. Tickets had to be printed by the thousands, then sorted by hand after each drawing. As documented in Jason Fagone’s detailed HuffPost Highline investigation, the operation ran like a small manufacturing shift — hours of scanning and stacking paper.

Michigan ended Winfall in May 2005. Jerry then located a Massachusetts game, Cash WinFall, with a comparable rolldown structure and a $2 ticket. Jerry and Marge Selbee began driving roughly 900 miles each way to buy in.

The Massachusetts Years and the Scale of the Buys

In Massachusetts, the couple bought through two small western Massachusetts stores — Billy’s Beverage in Sunderland and Jerry’s Place in South Deerfield — as reported by the Greenfield Recorder and the Boston Globe. The Selbees ran ticket terminals there during rolldown weeks, printing tickets for days at a stretch.

Buys grew into the hundreds of thousands of dollars per drawing, reaching about $720,000 in tickets on the largest ones, according to CBC and CBS reporting. Across the whole run, HuffPost Highline reported that GS Investment Strategies played 12 Michigan drawings and 43 Massachusetts drawings and lost money on only three of them.

The gross figure most often cited is more than $27 million in winning tickets. The net, before taxes, was roughly $7.75 million split among the partners. Spread across nine years and dozens of people, it was real money — not a jackpot windfall.

The Boston Globe Investigation and the Official Verdict

The arrangement became public in July 2011, when a Boston Globe Spotlight investigation by Andrea Estes and Scott Allen revealed that a handful of syndicates — including a group of MIT students — were dominating Cash WinFall’s rolldown drawings. State Treasurer Steven Grossman asked the state inspector general to review the game that October.

Inspector General Gregory W. Sullivan released his report on July 27, 2012. It found no evidence the game was rigged and no evidence that ordinary players or taxpayers had been harmed, while documenting that Massachusetts Lottery officials had known about the rolldown quirk for years and allowed the syndicates to keep operating.

The report estimated the syndicates collectively spent about $40 million on tickets over seven years and won about $48 million. Sullivan recommended no further action and found that lottery officials had not personally benefited. Two store owners who had let outside operators run terminals had their ticket-selling rights suspended for 26 days.

Massachusetts ended Cash WinFall in January 2012. That closed the last game with the rolldown structure Jerry and Marge Selbee had been playing, and the operation stopped.

What Happened After the Winning Stopped

This is the part readers usually want and rarely get: nothing dramatic happened. No charges were filed against Jerry and Marge Selbee. No money was clawed back. The state’s own investigation cleared the play as within the published rules, and the couple returned to Evart.

Their winnings were reported income, and the partnership’s proceeds were divided among shareholders. CBC reported that the Selbees kept tens of thousands of losing tickets as documentation in case the IRS ever wanted a paper trail. Anyone with questions about their own gambling records should consult the IRS directly at IRS.gov or a licensed tax professional.

CBS News reported that the couple put their share toward renovating their home and helping their grandchildren and great-grandchildren pay for their educations. Jerry described the overall result to 60 Minutes as “satisfactory,” which is roughly the tone of the whole thing.

The story reached Hollywood in 2022. Jerry & Marge Go Large, directed by David Frankel and starring Bryan Cranston and Annette Bening, premiered on Paramount+ in June 2022. Cranston, Bening, and Frankel visited Evart to meet the couple before filming.

What Winners Can Learn From the Jerry and Marge Selbee Story

Three things stand out in the documented record, and none of them are strategies you can repeat.

First, the edge came from a specific rule in specific games, not from lottery play in general. Standard draw games roll jackpots up, not down, and carry no positive-expectation window. Both Winfall and Cash WinFall no longer exist.

Second, the recordkeeping mattered as much as the math. Jerry and Marge Selbee operated through a registered LLC, tracked every drawing, and kept losing tickets. When investigators and reporters came looking, there was a paper trail.

Third, the outcome held up because the play was inside the published rules. The Massachusetts inspector general looked directly at it and found no rigging and no harm. That is the unusual ending in a genre full of unhappy ones.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much did Jerry and Marge Selbee actually win?

CBS News reported they grossed more than $27 million in winning tickets over nine years, with a net profit of about $7.75 million before taxes, split among roughly two dozen partners in GS Investment Strategies LLC.

Was what Jerry and Marge Selbee did illegal?

No one was charged. Massachusetts Inspector General Gregory W. Sullivan’s July 2012 report found no evidence the game was rigged and no evidence players or taxpayers were harmed, and recommended no further action.

Can anyone still use the rolldown strategy?

No. Michigan ended Winfall in May 2005 and Massachusetts ended Cash WinFall in January 2012. Standard jackpot games roll prizes up rather than down, so the window the Selbees exploited no longer exists.

Is the movie accurate?

Jerry & Marge Go Large (Paramount+, June 2022) is based on the real story, with Bryan Cranston and Annette Bening in the lead roles. Like most dramatizations, it compresses events and adds invented scenes; the reporting by CBS News, the Boston Globe, and HuffPost Highline is the factual record.

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