They have won millions in lotteries thanks to this simple mathematical calculation

A retired American couple has won millions of dollars in the lottery thanks to a mathematical calculation.

As financial investigations have confirmed, Jerry and Marge Selbee of Michigan have not committed any crime, but have simply taken advantage of a loophole in their state 's lottery rules.

The wedding had a quiet life in Evart, Michigan, a city of 1,900 people with a single traffic light. They raised six children and had a small store for decades on Main Street.

When he was 62 and she was 63, they decided to sell the premises and retire.

Shortly after, one morning in 2003, Jerry went back to the convenience store and saw a brochure for a new lottery game called Winfall. Jerry, a graduate in mathematics from Western Michigan University, immediately realized that it was a unique game.

"I read it and at that time I knew what the potential was," he said in an interview with CBS.

This is a feature called "rolldown" that had the Winfall game. If the jackpot reached $ 5 million and no one matched the six numbers, all the money was distributed to the winners of lower level prizes, greatly increasing the payments of those who matched five, four or three numbers.

When a rolldown was announced, Jerry took action. He bought $ 3,600 in Winfall tickets and won 6,300. Then he bets 8,000 and almost doubles.

The marriage began to play for hundreds of thousands of dollars. Jerry created a company, G.S. Investment Strategies and invited family and friends to share their shares in the company at a price of $ 500 each. On one occasion, they played $ 515,000 and recovered 853,000.

In 2005, Jerry's club had 25 members, including three police officers, a director of the only factory in the city and a vice-president of the bank. They had played Winfall 12 times, earning millions. Michigan suddenly closed the game, ironically citing lack of sales.

Then one of the club members told them that Mbadachusetts had a similar game called Cash Winfall.

Over the next six years, they developed a routine: they ran 900 miles each time there was a roll-out and bought hundreds of thousands of tickets in two small local stores. They then retired to a room at the Red Roof Inn, sorting the tickets by hand 10 hours a day for 10 days in a row.

They have invested more than $ 600,000 per game, seven times a year. Although they also suffered losses at one point that reached 18 million.

Jerry kept these notes "in case we have a federal physical audit". They were up to 65 buckets full of banknotes.

In 2011, a person reported to the Boston Globe newspaper that in some places in Mbadachusetts, Cash Winfall tickets were sold at an extraordinary volume.

The journal's famous investigative team, known as Spotlight and immortalized in a recent film, discovered that two groups dominated Cash Winfall: the Selbee of Evart, Michigan, and his competition, directed by mathematics students from MIT, the Institute. of Mbadachusetts technology.

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