Last night, I was driving on Interstate 35 northbound in Kyle, Texas (a suburb of Austin). I observed the following billboard: “Venmo me: @[notarealuser] Person who sends most money wins half of all money collected” This was in white lettering on a black background. No other information was posted.
This seems to me to clearly be a form of gambling or a pyramid scheme. There is also critical information omitted (such as when the game ends!). So, how can this be legal in the State of Texas? Does the company who manages or owns the billboard have any exposure to criminal liability? What about civil liability for those who fall for this scam and lose their “investment”?
I was surprised to see such an illegal activity posted on what otherwise appears to be a professionally run advertisement. Is it legal to advertise an illegal enterprise? Could someone put up a billboard saying “Want cocaine? Call 800-xxx-xxxx”?
I don’t think so since they’re not selling anything and, probably more importantly, they’re not trying to recruit anyone.
Whether or not it’s legal and/or gambling, I don’t know, but it’s not a pyramid scheme.
Definitely not a pyramid scheme. Technically it may not even be gamblin. From the set of ppl who submit money, there will be mathematically one person who sends the highest amount. Because the winner is supposed to be determined by a straightforward rule (“highest contribution”), not drawing names or random selection, there’s a decent argument that “chance” is not an element of the game. So definitely not a lottery as defined by any state lottery law. It’s a weird pay-to-play game.
It’s an interesting game theory puzzle. If you send a little money, it’s almost certainly lost. If you send in a lot of money, you might “win” and still lose money. WOPR sez “The only way to win is not to play”
And if you send enough to ‘guarantee’ a win, you may win less than you spent.
For example, if a bunch of people send in a few hundred or thousand dollars each, and you send in a million, you’ll get back a bit of half a million.
And this is all assuming it’s on the up and up. The person might just take the money and run or tell a friend what the highest deposit is so they can send in a few dollars more.
I don’t think it fits the definition of a lottery. All lotteries from state run to local Queen of Hearts revolve around the element of chance to win. This is not chance, someone is buying a win. And the other half of the money is a profit for running the game. That is not allowed in any jurisdiction I have heard of. Small lotteries are parimutuel - the proceeds are divided among the winners.
It’s interesting to consider whether this game constitutes “gambling”. I think it does, even though there are no literal random elements, since each individual player has to make choices based on necessarily incomplete knowledge of what other players are doing. It’s kind of analogous to betting on sports games or elections, which is legal in some jurisdictions but not others. So I think a close reading of the relevant Texas statutes would be required to determine if this is legal there.
More to the point, though, if it’s as you described, the deal being offered is “Venmo some money to this account. If you have any questions about what happens next, you have no way to contact or identify me.” Doesn’t sound like a wise investment to me.
I take back the resemblance to lottery, it looks less like that than I thought since there’s no luck or chance. However, the one big award aspect makes it sound different from a pyramid where cashing out is supposed to be possible.
Report this billboard to the Federal Trade Commission, the FBI, the Texas Attorney General, the local District Attorney, Better Business Bureau (BBB), and the Securities and Exchange Commission. See if any of them have problems with the billboard. This may be something that each of them has some authority over. This is something new, so who knows what any of them can do?
I disagree and I think there’s no way it would be considered legal.
The three components of a lottery are a prize, consideration (you must pay to enter), and chance. This obviously gas the first two, so chance is the question mark.
The element of chance is contrasted with skill: if it’s chance, it’s a lottery; if it’s skill, it’s a contest. I don’t see how “whoever pays the most” can be defined as skill.
Even without that, the lottery/contest rules are not clearly spelled out, so it would fail on that note.