Man wins $100,000 testing lottery strategy he saw on TV

A South Carolina man got a money-making idea from a television show — and it won him $100,000. 

The idea for the lottery experiment was sparked while watching an episode of the TLC series "Lottery Changed My Life," which chronicles the change in lifestyle and appearance of lottery winners. 

The idea was that, for three months, he was going to spend $25 a week playing the lottery to see what happened. 

"The first week I won $500," he told South Carolina Education Lottery. 

And in the seventh week is when the big payout came — $100,000 on a Powerball ticket. 

"I didn’t even know how to play Powerball," he laughed while describing how he checked his ticket.

He thought he only matched two numbers, but when his wife looked at the ticket she noticed he had the Powerball number. After a second look, he realized five numbers matched, one short of winning the jackpot in the drawing on May 28.

And because he spent the extra $1 for PowerPlay, his $50,000 prize doubled.

Since cashing in the win, he’s bought a car and is still spending $25 a week on lottery tickets.

"I’m going to finish out the three months," he said.

Another lottery-winning strategy that’s been getting attention lately is that of a Michigan couple, Jerry and Marge Selbee, whose story was recently turned into the movie "Jerry and Marge Go Large." 

Jerry found a loophole to repeatedly win increasingly larger amounts in the WinFall lottery in Massachusetts. 

The movie is available to stream now on Paramount+. 

This story was reported from Detroit.