Can You Game the Lottery?

One question that comes up time and again amongst regular lottery players is, “Can you game the lottery?” Can you work out how to play it to your best advantage and make regular wins happen?

Here are some stories that might make you reconsider whether this is possible or not.

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Joan Ginther’s Story

Joan Ginther is a remarkable lottery winner. In fact, she won the Texas Lottery four times in ten years. Of course, she spent thousands of dollars on tickets to achieve this, but it certainly paid off for her.

Ginther’s tale is unique for a couple of reasons. She has a Ph.D. in statistics from Stanford University, which already sets her apart from most players. Though she lived in Las Vegas, she repeatedly made trips to a specific store in rural Texas to buy her tickets. But how did she win so often?

The best theory comes from Peter Murca, a reporter for Philly.com who investigated her story. Ginther likely won her first jackpot the old-fashioned way—luck. She walked away with $5.4 million from a Texas jackpot 25 years ago, taking the prize in installments over 20 years.

But Ginther didn’t stop there. She kept playing, winning a total of $20 million over several wins. Murca theorized that Ginther used her statistical background to track the distribution of Texas Lottery scratch-off tickets. She may have monitored shipments to figure out where and when the biggest prizes were most likely to be won. While it’s impossible to know her exact methods, her incredible success has left many wondering whether it was truly luck or a calculated strategy.

Marge and Jerry Selbee’s Story

Marge and Jerry Selbee, a couple from Michigan, managed to find a loophole in certain lottery games that allowed them to win big. The couple owned a convenience store that sold lottery tickets, but Jerry, a math whiz, noticed something intriguing about the structure of the WinFall game in Michigan and its later iteration, Cash WinFall in Massachusetts.

These lotteries had a special feature: when the jackpot reached a certain level and nobody won, the money would “roll down” to the smaller prize tiers. This meant that if you played strategically during those times, you could almost guarantee a profit.

The Selbees capitalized on this opportunity. Jerry began buying thousands of tickets during roll-down weeks, turning a consistent profit. Over the course of nine years, the Selbees earned nearly $27 million from these lotteries. They were so successful that they turned their strategy into a full-time operation, even starting a business to organize their efforts.

Eventually, Michigan closed down the WinFall game, and the couple shifted their attention to Massachusetts. But they weren’t alone in spotting the opportunity—students from MIT had also figured out the math and were making millions using the same strategy. Both groups operated legally, but public perception wasn’t on their side. People felt that these organized groups were gaming the system at the expense of regular players.

In the end, a Boston Globe exposé brought the practice to light, and the Massachusetts Lottery shut down the game. While Jerry and Marge took some bad press, Jerry later remarked that it was a small price to pay for the rewards they reaped.

Stefan Mandel’s Story

Another name that frequently comes up in discussions about gaming the lottery is Stefan Mandel, a Romanian-born economist who devised a strategy that won him the lottery 14 times. Mandel’s method wasn’t about luck—it was based on careful calculation.

In the 1960s, Mandel created a formula that allowed him to calculate the most likely combinations in a lottery draw. His strategy revolved around syndicates of investors who pooled their money to buy massive quantities of lottery tickets, covering as many combinations as possible.

Mandel’s first success came in his native Romania, where he won a modest jackpot that allowed him to move to Australia. Once there, he refined his system and went on to win 12 more lotteries, including a $27 million jackpot in Virginia, USA, in the early 1990s. His method was legal but required meticulous planning, a large pool of investors, and the right lottery with favorable odds.

Despite the impressive run, lotteries around the world tightened their rules, making it much harder to exploit the system in this way. Mandel eventually retired from his lottery career but remains a legend for his systematic approach to beating the odds.

Mohan Srivastava’s Story

Mohan Srivastava, a Canadian statistician, stumbled upon a flaw in scratch-off lottery tickets that allowed him to predict winners with startling accuracy. Srivastava worked with numbers for a living, so when he noticed a pattern in the design of scratch-off games, he began investigating further.

What Srivastava discovered was that certain scratch-off games weren’t as random as they appeared. By analyzing the visible numbers on the tickets, he could deduce whether a ticket was a winner without scratching it off. After verifying his theory by accurately predicting multiple winners, Srivastava reported the flaw to the lottery commission rather than exploiting it for personal gain.

His discovery led to changes in the design of scratch-off tickets, but it also highlighted that even games of chance could have vulnerabilities that a sharp mind could exploit.

Mark and Evelyn Adams’ Story

Mark and Evelyn Adams, a couple from the UK, used a more direct approach to game the lottery. They focused on smaller, lesser-known lotteries with favorable odds. By pooling their resources and purchasing large numbers of tickets, the Adamses were able to win several prizes, including a £3 million jackpot.

Their strategy wasn’t as sophisticated as others on this list, but it highlights a key point—sometimes, gaming the lottery is about playing smarter, not harder. The couple avoided the heavily promoted national lotteries in favor of smaller games where fewer players meant better odds.

Conclusion: Can You Really Game the Lottery?

These stories suggest that it’s possible to use math, observation, or careful planning to tilt the odds in your favor—but it’s far from easy. Most people who attempt to game the lottery spend a great deal of time, effort, and money to do so. And while it’s been done before, lotteries around the world have become more vigilant, closing loopholes and tightening regulations.

Still, stories like those of Joan Ginther, the Selbees, Stefan Mandel, and Mohan Srivastava show that, with the right strategy, it’s possible to beat the odds—at least for a while. Whether or not you want to try is a different question altogether.