As traders and investors many of us dream of the big payoff; some magical rally or insider tip that transforms our portfolio beyond our wild dreams.

Of course, in this day and age there are so many opportunities to generate wealth, with some being a little more, shall we say, interesting than others.

Today we will be looking at people who have amassed a fortune in outlandish ways, or at least in ways that are out of the ordinary.

Make a Million With Math

In 2002, Russian mathematician Dr. Grigoriy Perelman made history for solving a famous mathematical quandary called the Poincare conjecture.

Solving this problem which has to do with four-dimensional space led to the Clay Mathematics Institute of Cambridge, Massachusetts awarding him with the Millennium Prize, which just so happens to include $1 million!

Funnily enough, Dr. Perelman declined to accept the award, so perhaps he doesn’t belong in today’s article after all!

Either way, you’ll be pleased to know that the Clay Mathematics Institute still has a further six $1 million awards to give away to anyone who can solve the associated mathematical problems.

If you fancy yourself as a mathematical prodigy then why not try your hand at the Riemann hypothesis. This problem has existed since it was first established by in 1859, and solving it will net you a cool million.

The Chinese Cardboard Queen

Starting a company with just $3,800, Zhang Yin of Hong Kong stumbled upon a beautifully simple yet nonetheless incredible idea.

In our modern era China has become well-known for being one of, if not the world’s leading global exporter of goods. With this in mind, Miss Yin decided to invest all of her savings into scrap paper from the United States.

Her reasoning behind this was that practically all goods are shipped in cardboard boxes.

All she had to do was buy scrap paper at low prices before converting it into higher value cardboard and then selling it on for a profit.