Jerry & Marge Go Large

The true story is sharper than the film. Jerry Selbee had run a convenience store in Evart, Michigan, for seventeen years and retired. In 2003 he walked into his old shop, saw a leaflet for a new state lottery called Winfall, and found the flaw in under three minutes. He had a mathematics degree. The flaw was this: in Winfall, if the jackpot reached five million dollars and nobody matched all six numbers, the money did not roll over. It rolled down and was split among those matching five, four or three. In those windows, buying tickets was mathematically profitable. The Selbees first brought in their six grown children, then set up a company called GS Investment Strategies and sold five-hundred-dollar shares to neighbours. When a friend pointed out an identically structured lottery in Massachusetts, they drove roughly seven hundred miles for every rolldown. Over nine years they grossed more than $27m in winning tickets, for a net profit of $7.75m before tax. In 2011 the Boston Globe exposed it: two groups dominated that lottery, the Selbee outfit from Evart and a syndicate of MIT mathematicians. The investigation concluded nobody else's odds had been affected. Bryan Cranston and Annette Bening star, directed by David Frankel. Who it is for: viewers who like light, warm comedy built on a true story. Who it is not for: anyone expecting tension. The film softens the mathematical cunning, draws its people far too likeable, and never once conveys risk.