# How can this billboard be legal? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 10, 2025, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-this-billboard-be-legal/1025592 "2025-12-10T18:12:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-this-billboard-be-legal/1025592/21 "2025-12-10T19:54:32Z")
> [@](#): > > Person who sends most money wins half of all money collected The billboard creator will know how much is in the venmo at all times. All they have to do to meet the terms is to send $1 more than the max transfer to the venmo and then they themselves win half of the money. But regardless, they wouldn’t ever have to send out a prize anyway. Since they don’t have any duration specified, they can always say that it’s still ongoing and that the winnings will be sent when they decide to end this. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-this-billboard-be-legal/1025592/22 "2025-12-10T20:00:42Z")
Clearly it _ought_ to be illegal. There’s some teeny chance that it happens to fall into the cracks between existing anti-gambling scam regulations. But I’d put that chance somewhere between “slim” and “fat”. > [@Dag\_Otto](#): > > The nice feature of this is that you never have to announce a winner. The only thing to do is transfer money out of the venmo account. I’m reminded of an old joke about raffling off a dead mule. You don’t mention it’s dead while selling tickets to the mule raffle. When you draw the winner, he’ll be pissed to find his prize mule is dead. So refund him his ticket price. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-this-billboard-be-legal/1025592/23 "2025-12-10T20:02:35Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > The three components of a lottery are a prize, consideration (you must pay to enter), and chance. What if, per the implication of other posts, you _don’t_ pay out? You make the offer on the billboard, you collect all the money, and… that’s it. There is no prize. It’s not gambling. It’s just a lie. Is it a _legal_ lie? Or is there a contract established with all those who send money by making the statement? And, practically speaking, how could it be proven that that’s what happened? ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-this-billboard-be-legal/1025592/24 "2025-12-10T20:16:57Z")
That’s an illegal fraud, not illegal gambling. “I’m gonna do X, Y, and Z. You all send in money and some of you will benefit from my doing X, Y, and Z.” Then instead I simply steal the money and don’t do X, Y, and Z, nor did I ever intend to. Simple fraud. Proving any financial or white collar crime is always an uphill fight. But the facts as we clairvoyantly see them are unequivocally fraud. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-this-billboard-be-legal/1025592/25 "2025-12-10T20:40:39Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > 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. The skill is figuring out how to bid more than the last person but low enough to stay profitable. In other words, not all bids have equal chances. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-this-billboard-be-legal/1025592/26 "2025-12-10T20:45:19Z")
That’s skill to the same extent that knowing the odds of different poker hands is a skill. It doesn’t remove the element of chance, that you don’t know and have no way of knowing what the other bids are. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-this-billboard-be-legal/1025592/27 "2025-12-10T20:56:15Z")
Is there any purely skillful endeavor without any element of chance? ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-this-billboard-be-legal/1025592/28 "2025-12-10T20:57:29Z")
Chess? ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-this-billboard-be-legal/1025592/29 "2025-12-10T20:58:09Z")
Might rain. ---
**Author:** ![Drum\_God](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drum_god/32/44_2.png) [@Drum\_God](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drum_God)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-this-billboard-be-legal/1025592/30 "2025-12-10T20:58:29Z")
I’ll concede that I was wrong in calling this “game” a pyramid. It does seem to me to be more of a lottery. I was also struck by how there were no details on how the contest would be run or how to contact the sponsor. It sure seems like it would be illegal. Would the (otherwise legitimate) owner/manager of the billboard have any legal exposure for people taken in by this scam? ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-this-billboard-be-legal/1025592/31 "2025-12-10T21:04:50Z")
It’s a fun question. It reminds me of storage auctions or unsorted Amazon returns. An invitation to bid, sight unseen, on the contents of x volume cubed, no promises. Only you also pay your losing bid. Whomp whomp. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-this-billboard-be-legal/1025592/32 "2025-12-10T21:14:51Z")
It sounds like a great Sociology experiment. I’m not sure how you get away with it even if you return all the money. You’ll likely be sued, prosecuted, or have your legs broke. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-this-billboard-be-legal/1025592/33 "2025-12-10T21:17:04Z")
Tough for that to happen when “you” are a bot in Bulgaria controlled by some Nigerians in Addis Ababa. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-this-billboard-be-legal/1025592/34 "2025-12-10T21:22:45Z")
I meant as a researcher. As for criminals, why waste money on billboard advertising when spam is much cheaper? ---
**Author:** ![colinfred](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colinfred/32/21338_2.png) [@colinfred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colinfred)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-this-billboard-be-legal/1025592/35 "2025-12-10T21:36:41Z")
Billboard advertising adds a level of legitimacy that email spam doesn’t. There will be many people who think “I’m too smart to fall for email spam which anybody can send but THEY wouldn’t let that go up on a billboard if it wasn’t legit” ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-this-billboard-be-legal/1025592/36 "2025-12-10T21:41:42Z")
I’m not sure if it’s necessarily illegal for a billboard owner to rent space for advertising illegal services. On I-80 across Indiana, you can see dozens of billboards for pot dispensaries in Illinois and Michigan, even though pot is illegal in Indiana. I assume the government of Indiana wouldn’t allow this if it were Constitutional for them to forbid it. Of course, that’s an issue of something being clearly legal in some places but not others, so not directly analogous to our case. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-this-billboard-be-legal/1025592/37 "2025-12-10T21:55:08Z")
We see spam / scam advertisements on the internet quite often. Evidently providing a broadcast or display medium for something that’s a scam is not itself inherently illegal. Yes, various aspects of the WWW are treated as common carriers and billboard advertising is IMO not. But exactly whether, where, and how legal liability attachs for running that ad is a darn good question. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-this-billboard-be-legal/1025592/38 "2025-12-10T22:01:57Z")
_Games_ magazine had a contest along these lines a few decades back: readers were invited to submit a number between one and one million (postcards only, one number per entry, unlimited entries per contestant). The two grand prizes went to (1) whoever submitted the number closest to the average of all the numbers submitted, and (2) whoever submitted the lowest unduplicated number. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-this-billboard-be-legal/1025592/39 "2025-12-10T22:13:59Z")
There are a bunch of game-theoretic discussions on wiki around things like this. Damned if I can remember enough of the magic words to find one similar to the billboard challenge. Ref @Q.Q.Switcheroo just above … I roughly recall a semi-similar thought experiment raffle game where each player submitted any number of “chances”. Like buying as many raffle tickets as you want given unlimited funds. 1 ticket? Sure. 1 meeelion tickets? Sure. Once everyone had “bought” their “tickets”, a single ticket was randomly drawn and the lucky winner was announced. The headscratcher gotcha was that the prize to be awarded was 1/(total number of tickets entered). So for each player, with each additional ticket they “bought”, their odds of winning went up, but the prize went down. And everybody else had the same incentives and drawbacks. You can “corner the market” by putting in a huge number. But what if somebody else did too? And each additional attempt by various players to corner the market further reduces the prize to be won. Max performing your input against the game rules and max performing your input against the competing players are sorta two different problems to solve. I sure don’t remember the results, but it was a headscratcher. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2025, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-this-billboard-be-legal/1025592/40 "2025-12-10T22:23:34Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > 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. Don’t you have to have a million in your Venmo account (or linked account) to do this. I’m thinking someone smart enough accumulate a million dollars in a Venmo account wouldn’t fall for this. Related question, has anyone ever Venmo’d someone a million dollars? Is there a Venmo limit? ETA: According to AI, your Venmo sending limit depends on identity verification: unverified users have a $999.99 weekly limit, while verified users can send up to $19,999.99 weekly in total, with a **$4,999.99 limit per individual transaction** , meaning large amounts must be split. These are rolling weekly limits, not daily, and verifying your identity (name, address, SSN) is key to increasing limits… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-this-billboard-be-legal/1025592.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-can-this-billboard-be-legal/1025592.md?page=3)