5 People Who Won Big By Manipulating The System
by Lydia Bugg
Everybody loves a good loophole. We have an entire movie franchise based around someone figuring out that there’s no rule that says dogs can’t play basketball ... or football, or soccer, or baseball, or volleyball. Whoever writes sports rules should really have learned their lesson at some point.
No one likes a cheater of course, but we’re not talking about cheating. We’re talking about knowing the rules better than the person who wrote the rule book, thinking outside the box, and outsmarting the system in true Modern Rogue fashion. If you can figure out how to do that, you can achieve amazing things. For instance ...
A Woman Won The Lottery 4 Times By Predicting Their Location
Many news outlets have called Joan R. Ginther the luckiest woman in the world. She has won the lottery on four separate occasions, taking home millions of dollars each time. There’s roughly a one-in-eighteen septillion chance of that happening randomly, and an even smaller chance of it happening by black magic, trust us.
Pixabay
"Crap. Just another free ticket."
She won $5.4 million in 1993, $2 million in 2006. Two years later, she took home an additional $3 million, and ended her streak with $10 million in 2008. If that sounds a little fishy to you, let me just say that you have good instincts. Ginther is a retired Stanford University math professor who specialized in statistics. She currently resides in Las Vegas with her husband, her dog, and a swimming pool full of exotic panthers, we’re assuming.
The lottery is pretty hard to manipulate for your average person. The few times it has been pulled off usually required someone rigging the system from the inside. Joan didn’t cheat to win the lottery — like a good Batman villain, she just used her brain for nefarious purposes.
The trick to lottery tickets is they aren’t actually random. There’s a programmed algorithm that distributes them in a pattern that seems random but actually makes sure winners are properly spread across the distribution area. It seems Ginther may have found a way to use publicly available information to figure out how to pick winning tickets.
Philly.com
So the good ones will always be on the right?
Once she discovered a pattern, all she had to do was wait until a winning ticket was scheduled to show up in a sparsely populated region where there would be less competition to purchase the ticket. Ginther won twice in Bishop Texas, the small town she grew up in. Supposedly, she rolled into town with a money belt full of cash and bought a huge wad of tickets before each of her big wins.
Technically this isn’t illegal. So if you’re a math genius with a lot of free time and a desire to acquire enough money to shoot your favorite car into space, give it a shot!
Subaru Made Ridiculous Mods To Their New Truck In Order To Avoid Paying Taxes
Speaking of cars that deserve to be shot into space, did you know a loophole in the chicken tax gave us one of the most insane cars of all time? In 1963 Europe was frustrated by cheap American poultry driving down the price for its continental farmers, so they instituted a pricey import tax to even the playing field. In response, President Lyndon B. Johnson created “the chicken tax,” a series of tariffs on brandy, potato starch, and light trucks valued at more than one thousand dollars.
Getty / Wired
"Looks like them Duke boys done got themselves a POS."
This was a real bummer for Subaru, who was just getting into the light truck market with its answer to the El Camino: the Subaru BRAT, a shoehorned acronym for “Bi-Drive Recreational All-Terrain Transporter.” Also the same name we give to a good hotdog or a terrible child.
Subaru did not want to pay the hefty 25% tax to import their car, so instead, they got a little poetic. What’s in a car? According to U.S. tax policy: two rear-facing jump seats, seat belts, carpeting and utility handles. With these small modifications to the bed of the BRAT, it was technically no longer a truck, but a very dangerous car with only half a roof. If you duct tape enough inflatable rafts to a car it’s technically a boat, right?
Many owners simply removed the jump seats after purchasing the “car” and used the truck bed for its intended purpose: helping all of their friends move, in exchange for free beer and pizza. Everything about the BRAT is hilarious, from its generally clownish look, to this commercial that comes right out and calls it “Fun On Wheels” in case you needed help reaching that conclusion on your own.
Girl Scout Dominates Cookie Sales By Setting Up Shop Outside Of A Weed Store
A Girl Scout made every internet headline-writer’s week by peddling her merchandise outside of Urbn Leaf, a legal marijuana shop in San Diego California. We're pretty sure this makes her the first person who can legally be classified as both a human and a living sitcom joke.
The yearly cookie sale is the Girl Scouts' biggest fundraiser, and they have raised an estimated $700 million since 1999 to support the organization. Prices per box vary by the area they are being sold in, but generally they go for around $4 to $5 per box.
This unnamed Girl Scout reportedly sold 300 boxes in 6 hours, completely selling out her inventory and raising roughly over $1000 for her troop. More than enough to earn her the “Drop-Kicking Capitalism Into The Sun” badge, as well as a plaque that surely reads, “You own the Girl Scouts, now. Congratulations, Queen Girl Scout.”
USAToday
"What'd I tell you about encroaching on my block, corpse?"
The Girl Scouts’ regional council called the girl's choice of real estate a “hazy tactic,” because the shop was not on the approved booth site list, but technically she didn’t set up a booth in front of the store. She just happened to roll by it with a wagon full of bite-sized treats that happen to taste delicious, especially to people who happen to be stoned out of this galaxy.
The owners of Urban Leaf were delighted with the Girl Scout's presence and even took a picture of her in front of their shop and posted it to their Instagram page to promote her presence. Hopefully, her partnership with the store will continue next year and earn her “Officially The Bill Gates Of Cookies” badge.
Lester Hayes Forces The NFL To Create New Rules
The Oakland Raiders aren’t a sports team synonymous with good behavior. In the 1970s and ‘80s they famously played so rough that an opposing coach once sued them for it. He called the team the “criminal element of pro football,” a name almost as cool as The Raiders.
Pixabay
"It's not looking good. Your best option is to plead 'scumbag.'"
They didn’t just play dirty though — they played smart. Especially Lester Hayes, a cornerback from 1977 to 1986, known for coating his entire upper body in a substance called Stickum. It was designed to help the ball stick to players' hands, but Hayes figured out that he could use it to more easily keep his hands on opposing receivers' fragile limbs. So instead of just putting a little on his palms, he basically bathed in the stuff.
Hayes’s flagrant misuse of Stickum was so legendary that the NFL decided to ban it in 1980. In his first four seasons of NFL play, Hayes had 25 interceptions. In the six seasons after Stickum was banned he only had 14.
ProFootballDaily
"Thanks. I've been trying for 2 hours to get that off of my hand."
Stickum wasn’t the only loophole Hayes exploited. He was also known for intimidating receivers by punching them in the throat. This was of course illegal and would draw penalties, but he felt that it was worth it to distract the receiver. Throat punching has proven to be a surprisingly effective distraction.
It’s also worth noting that Hayes wasn’t the only Raider to force the NFL to create a rule because of his crazy behavior. Lyle Alzado caused the NFL to create a rule named after him that states you can’t remove another player’s helmet, because he did that in a Super Bowl playoff game. He then proceeded to throw the helmet at the opposing player's unprotected head. Ah, the golden age of football when men were men and heads were big, spongy targets.
A Man Becomes A Kickboxing Champion Without Knowing How To Kickbox
You might know Tim Ferriss as the author of The 4-Hour Workweek, but did you know he’s also a Chinese Kickboxing Nation Champion? Ferriss claims that in 1999, he decided to compete against seasoned kickboxers with years of experience after just four weeks of training. Why on earth would anyone attempt this? Someone apparently dared him to, and who cares about a bunch of intact organs when all of your friends think you’re a chicken?
Olivier Ezratty
Scientists call it "Marty McFly Syndrome".
His strategy for winning was twofold:
1) After finding out that weigh-ins occurred the day prior to the competition, he claims to have lost 28 pounds in 18 hours, using dehydration techniques he had been practicing since he was a high school wrestler. He weighed in at 165 pounds and returned the next day to compete at 193 pounds. This placed him in a weight class that was actually about three classes below his fighting weight.
2) After carefully studying the rules of the competition, Ferriss found a considerable loophole that made up his main fighting strategy. If one combatant fell off the elevated kickboxing platform three times in a single round, his opponent won by default. So, Ferris got to work on a new winning technique called "shove that dude off the platform". Here are a few clips of Tim performing this highly advanced technique:
Of course he eventually won. The judges reportedly weren’t happy about the outcome, but their hands were tied, and also they were probably frightened that Ferris might shove them.
