This is the incredible story of how a retired couple in small town America became millionaires after discovering a loophole in a local lottery game.
Jerry and Marge Selbee used mathematics to exploit the Cash Winfall lottery in Michigan and earned $26 million over the course of a few years - and everything they did was legal.
For 17 years, the Selbees ran a convenience in their town of Evart, Michigan. And then, one fine day in 2003, they came across the Cash Winfall lottery which turned them into millionaires. The Selbees explained their modus operandi in an episode of CBS News' 60 Minutes Overtime.
In Cash Winfall, if the jackpot reached $5 million and none of the ticket holders matched all six numbers, the money would roll down to lower-tier ticket holders. This meant that if a ticket holder matched even three, four or five numbers, his or her payout would be increased considerably.
Jerry Selbee, who majored in mathematics in college, figured out the loophole that would guarantee him a profit if he bought enough tickets.
"If I played $1100, mathematically I'd have one four-number winner – that's 1000 bucks," he said.
"I divided 1100 by six instead of 57, because I did a mental quick dirty, and I come up with 18. So I knew I'd have either 18 or 19 three-number winners, and that's 50 bucks each. So I got $1100 invested and I've got a $1900 return," he explained.
Now if that sounds like too much mathematics, the gist of it is that Selbee, 81, made a profit of $800 on his investment of $1100.
"It is actually just basic arithmetic," Selbee added. "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."
After discovering the loophole in 2003, he replicated it again and again on increasingly larger scales. The couple also got their friends and children involved in the scheme.
And when the Winfall game closed down in Michigan, they continued playing it in Massachusetts. Eventually, the organisers received a tip-off about the scheme and Winfall closed down in 2011. By then, the Selbees were already millionaires.
An investigation into their winnings found they had nothing illegal, only used a legal loophole to their advantage.
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