Was $614,000 the most money a lottery player has ever paid out on lotto tickets? [Nope]

Jerry Dagrosa knows the secrets of a high rolling Massachusetts Lottery game loophole Photo: Greenfield Recorder

Americans love playing the lottery, spending more than $70 billion a year on tickets.

That's more than any other entertainment purchase, including sports tickets, books, video games, movies, and music.

The lottery takes up the bulk of the leisure spend of all Americans by a wide margin Chart: CNN Money

So what's the most an individual player has spent on a single game? And did it bring them the jackpot?

Here are four high-roller spends that will truly shock you.

1. SPENT $614,000

Jerry Dagrosa helped buy $614,000 worth of $2 Cash Winfall tickets for Gerald Selbee and wife Marjorie Photo: Greenfield Recorder

Jerry Dagrosa, helped a Massachusetts couple buy $614,000 worth of $2 Cash Winfall tickets.

With his assistance, Gerald Selbee and wife Marjorie, both in their early 70s, each bought approximately $300,000 worth of two dollar tickets in 2011 for the tiny Massachusetts Cash WinFall lottery to guarantee a jackpot win.

In this game players such as the Selbees could virtually guarantee a profitable win by spending $500,000.

MIT-educated statistician Mohan Srivastava said that a player who bought 200,000 tickets during a special four-week period would make between $240,000 to $1.4 million in profit.

2. SPENT $958,000

China seems an unlikely country be spending large sums on the lottery Photo: Supplied

A 46-year-old Shanghai man spent his entire life savings on lottery tickets, spending $3,200 a day at one point.

The man, known only as Xiao, sold his four apartments, four cars and watches worth 6 million yuan (US$958,000) to fuel his buying habit.

He won 400,000 yuan (US$64,000) at one point, but eventually lost it all.

3. SPENT $3.3 MILLION

Joan Ginther in a rare photo, left, in the 1969 University of Texas yearbook. At top right is Sun Bae, the owner-cashier who sold Ginther two of her million-dollar winning tickets Photo: Philly.com

Basic Vegas gambling principles - like card counting in blackjack, money management in poker, and timing in progressive slots - may have inspired Las Vegas resident Joan Ginther to win by buying a huge number of $20 to $50 scratch-off tickets.

Over some 17 years Ginther was thought to have bought a total of 90,000 tickets worth $3.3 million or more.

But it was worth the risk. She won a total of $20.4 million between 1993 and 2010:

$5.4 million in a 1993 Lotto Texas drawing,
$2 million in Holiday Millionaire in 2006,
$3 million in Millions & Millions in 2008,
$10 million in $140,000,000 Extreme Payoff in 2010.

4. SPENT $7 MILLION

Stefan Mandel founded an international betting syndicate in 1992 so that he could raise funds to buy every possible number combination in a lottery.

He was able to find 25 investors for his pool who chipped in the needed amount.

Then he looked around the world for lotteries that had rollover jackpots that were more than 3x the cost of every number combination.

In 1992 he saw that the Virginia State Lottery was suitable. It had seven million number combinations. Each ticket cost $1, and the jackpot had reached $27M.