Summary

• The central conflict in the Jerry & Marge Go Large true story involves two real college students named Tyler and Eric who exploit a lottery discrepancy for financial gain.
• The movie made changes to the true story, portraying Tyler and Eric as villains and downplaying the larger context of the economic crisis at the time.
• Despite these changes, the Jerry & Marge Go Large movie still captured the essence of the real story, with Jerry figuring out the lottery loophole, setting up a corporation, and helping turn his town around.

There is a Jerry & Marge Go Large true story, but it might be unclear if the supporting characters of Tyler and Eric existed in real life like the titular couple. Adapted from the HuffPost article of the same name, the Paramount+ movie depicts the tale of retirees Jerry and Marge Selbee, who in the early 2000s drove across state lines every three weeks to play the Massachusetts lottery. They eventually earned close to $27 million thanks to a loophole they discovered. The central conflict comes in the form of Tyler and Eric.

They are two Harvard University students who find a path to success. They notice the lottery discrepancy and exploit it for financial gain. They get help from other students at Harvard, as well as outside investors, and form a company to make sure everything they are doing is above board. Tyler is portrayed as slimy and cunning, compared to Jerry's calm and generous demeanor. In the case of the Jerry & Marge Go Large true story, Tyler and Eric are based on real college students, but their names were changed.

James Harvey And Yuran Lu - The Real Tyler And Eric Explained

Around the time that the real Selbees were taking advantage of the flaws of the Massachusetts Lottery's WinFall game, James Harvey was completing an independent study project at MIT. He discovered he could profit off of the same game. After analyzing WinFall, he realized that if the jackpot hit $2 million with no winner, it would be allocated among all the game players who had matched three, four, or five of the six numbers. Like Selbee, the more money he played and the timing of his bet netted him a profit.

Harvey got other MIT students in on the action, including Yuran Lu, and together the duo formed a company called Random Strategies Investments LLC to play WinFall. They accumulated around $17 million before Massachusetts Lottery officials shut down the game permanently. Regarding Tyler and Eric's contention with the Selbees in the movie, the real Harvey and Lu didn't take to bullying tactics against the retirees, so that is not part of the Jerry & Marge Go Large true story and is completely fictional.

Tyler And Eric Weren't The Only Changes In Jerry & Marge Go Large

The Jerry & Marge Go Large true story did more than make subtle changes to Tyler and Eric. It also made changes to the Selbees' story as well. Instead of showcasing everything that happened in Jerry's story and contrasting that with American capitalism and the economic crisis, the movie ended up as a basic feel-good story. This was shown when the characters of Jerry and Marge were mostly generic retirees, without really showing the real people that the article by Jason Fagone brought to life.

This hurt when Tyler and Eric were shown as villains. With Jerry and Marge portrayed as a kind older couple, turning the college kids into villains never seemed to work and just created unnecessary tension where the real story could have sufficed. The state of the country economically was more interesting than two MIT students bullying retirees. While the movie mostly ignored what was happening in the nation at the time of the windfall for the Selbees and their friends, much of what the movie presented was true to life.

Just like Bryan Cranston in the movie, Jerry did figure out the odds of the lottery loophole in about three minutes. He also figured out how much he needed to buy to make a profit and tested it out some before he told Marge about his findings. Finally, he set up the corporation with friends and family to get in on the action and helped turn his town around. When it comes to the Jerry & Marge Go Large true story, enough was real to make it a good biopic, with just enough false things to make it a feel-good movie.