Lifestyle

Jerry and Marge Sold Their Small-Town Store and Retired. Then He Spotted a Flaw in a Lottery Game and They Won Millions: “It Was Just Simple Math”

By Mike Harper · November 13, 2026

Jerry and Marge Selbee did not set out to get rich in retirement.

The couple lived in Evart, Michigan, a town of about 1,900 people, and had been married for decades when 60 Minutes Australia correspondent Liz Hayes visited them for a 2022 report. The program filmed on Jerry’s 84th birthday. CBS News has reported that the high school sweethearts had just sold their convenience store and were living a quiet life when everything changed.

By 2003, Jerry had retired, the Australian program said, but his mind had not. He spotted a brochure for a new Michigan lottery game called Windfall and read the fine print.

What he found was a rule the game advertised openly. If the jackpot reached 5 million dollars and no one matched all six numbers, the money “rolled down” to players who matched fewer numbers. Jerry, who CBS says has a mathematics degree from Western Michigan University, worked out the odds in his head. On those roll down weeks, buying enough tickets meant the couple could expect to win more than they spent.

“It was just simple math,” he told Hayes.

He also put it another way. “I did not have to be lucky to win. I had to be unlucky to lose.”

According to the report, Jerry quietly withdrew retirement savings to buy tickets for several weeks before telling Marge. When he did, she was on board right away.

“I believed him. He does this stuff all the time,” Marge said.

The couple invited family and neighbors in, and the program said their group grew to 25 members. When Michigan ended the game, they found a Massachusetts lottery with the same roll down feature and drove about 15 hours each way to play it.

Over nine years, 60 Minutes Australia said, the scheme netted nearly 27 million US dollars before Massachusetts also shut its game down. CBS News reported that the couple grossed more than 26 million dollars, all of it legal. Their story later became a 2022 film.

The money did not change how they lived. Asked whether they bought a flashy car or a house on the beach, the couple told Hayes, “We didn’t change our lifestyle a bit.” According to the report, they stayed in the same house they had lived in through their marriage, and the winnings went toward education for their grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

The Selbees beat a game with an unusual rule, and lottery officials closed it. Most lottery games have no such feature, and the odds of winning a big jackpot are very long.

Stories like theirs can also be used against older adults. Scammers send fake prize notices claiming someone has won a lottery or sweepstakes, then ask for money up front. The District of Columbia Attorney General’s office warns that if you did not buy a ticket, you did not win a lottery. It says never to send money to claim a prize, including for “taxes, shipping and handling, insurance, or processing fees,” and never to give out bank details. It also notes it is against federal law to take part in a foreign lottery.

Anyone who gets a suspicious prize call or letter can hang up and report it to the Federal Trade Commission at ftc.gov or to their state attorney general.

Jerry’s own summary of those years was simple. Retirement leaves a lot of time, he said, and the game gave them “something to look forward to.”

This article is for general information and is not financial or legal advice. Details of the Selbees’ story are from 60 Minutes Australia’s 2022 report and CBS News; scam guidance is from the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia. This article was produced with the assistance of AI and fact-checked against the sources cited by LightWave Reports.