-REECE- said:
Being real here... If bids get to $147 (what John needs for his million), that'd mean 14700 bids have been placed. I think it's a bit of an exaggeration to suggest that people have any chance of winning. Lotteries are a stupid tax because only fools buy them actually thinking they're going to win.
Assuming the auction had been continued to the end someone would have won. The chance of being that person is difficult to calculate and would depend largely on the actions of others, their number and skill among other factors.
I had considered buying a bid just for link. If that 1st link proved successful then I would have bought more. So there were certainly other considerations to be had.
As far as the usual pooled state lotteries go I often buy tickets, whole blocks of tickets, when and only when the expected rate of return becomes something greater than my investment. Certainly its an unlikely event but if I'm buying into a chance to win a large prize pool and the value of that is 1.10 per 1 played then I'm pretty happy taking the chance with a couple hundred dollar wheel. Yes it would be smarter of everyone concerned if no one ever played but once enough do then opportunities present themselves.
Perhaps buying into the LLLL.com buyout can be seen in a similar light? No?
I don't think anyone plays the lottery hoping notto win. If someone wanted to donate to charity, they'd donate it to a charity, not to some likely corrupt lottery organization.
You mean like the State of California (or WA/WI/NY/etc?)
NameTrader.com said:
Unless something changed in 3 months, this was a question posted on Yahoo Answers: "I know that Swoopo is not likely to get you a good deal - more likely to waste a lot of money on bids - but I'm curious as to why they won't even let people from the following places register: Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Montana, Tennessee, Vermont, Puerto Rico and protectorates.
What are they doing that runs afoul of the law in these states? Is it something to do with internet gambling?"
The disallowed list is right there on the signup form. Its funny too that Kentucky isint one of the prohibited states considering the recent BS that state recently pulled against gambling-related domains.
I must say that I've been fascinated with Swoopo for several days now. I'm not 100% convinced they play fair by their own rules though. I'd have to really spend the time to observe, maybe set up a recorder or something, but I thought I've seen several instance where many minutes were added to an auction and not just a few seconds. Also theres no way to verify the legitimacy of any of the bidders. Perhaps they could throw a half dozen shills in the game and keep things wild.
When I was a much younger man I worked Carny for a couple of months running "games of skill" and that was quite an education. I never worked in the "alibi joints", never progressed that far (i worked "add 'em ups") but loved to watch them. The guys running those could always find a reason why someone failed to win the prize and could always keep them playing. Dudes trying to win big stuffed animals for the girlfriends were the best marks. "Hey Romeo" was the cry. The mark would sometimes spend 50 bucks to win a toy worth 5. And if a guy did spend that much the boss would usually find a way to let them get their prize in the end. It didnt pay to have a bunch of really pissed off dudes running around.
In the begining my friend who got me into it explained it simply that everyone wants something for nothing but what they all get is nothing for something. The tools, the methods, the names and rewards all may change but some things never do.
