7 ms·

There’s a good chance the contest was a ruse and the disk jockey was reading a serial number off a dollar he just pulled from his wallet.

eutectic 6y ago
That would be illegal.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  It's only a crime if you get caught. Anyway, I know lotteries and gambling are regulated, what about e.g. radio or charity raffles?
  - Loughla 6y ago
    Yes, radio, charity, and other raffles are regulated. I encourage you to search for [your state] raffle statute. Or [your city/county] raffle statute.
    - jacobr1 6y ago
      One of the common regulations you often hear about is "no purchase necessary" - even for games where most player get a chance to win by purchasing a product, they still need to provide some other mechanism like mailing in a request.
    - ehnto 6y ago
      Just because it is illegal doesn't mean it's not done. I've seen plenty of faux competitions ran successfully without consequence. Same with email signup regulations. Plenty of laws and regulations, yet it's really hard for people to get caught and fined for misbehaving.
      - Retric 6y ago
        The same is true of shoplifting etc. Getting caught has nothing to do with something being a crime.
      - zip1234 6y ago
        How many people break a traffic law every single time they drive and don't get caught>?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
saalweachter 6y ago
Oh, no. Ooooh, no. So, thinking about how you would run this contest, you've got three basic ways of generating a random serial number. The first is literally generating a random serial number; the problem being, there is an infinitesimal chance the serial number you just generated is in the pocket of someone in your listening area. The second is to choose a sibling serial number of a bill in your pocket -- change one of the last couple of digits. If you're lucky, the sibling bills will have been delivered to the same bank in the same area and still be in circulation. But there's still a pretty slim chance it's even possible. The best way to ensure that your contest is actually winnable, that your target bill is in circulation would be to start the contest by taking all the bills from your collective pockets, at the studio, writing down the serial numbers, and then handing them to someone to go buy coffee for the studio across the street. Wait a week or two, and your target bills will have circulated through the area enough, but almost certainly be in the pockets of people who could tune in and listen, and not someone halfway across the country. So enter the 100,000 $1 bills sitting in stacks in this dude's house. Not circulating. At first, this isn't a problem -- he took out the bills after the contest start, after all -- but as time goes on, and the studio repeats the process of tagging and releasing new bills in circulation to generate new numbers to call out, suddenly, there is no chance that any of these hundred-thousand bills you are laboriously checking will work.
- giarc 6y ago
  Even if they physically had the bill and ensured it was in circulation in the city, the chances that someone has it and is listening to that radio station is so small. The radio station had to know it was an unwinnable contest. Why anyone would think they could win the contest is beyond me!
  - saalweachter 6y ago
    I don't know enough about this particular contest -- and since it happened in 1984, I'm not going to attempt to find more information on the internet -- but typically the goal isn't to have an unwinnable contest, just to have it drag on long enough while drawing more and more people into listening. At the start of the contest, you might have 0.1% of the people in your listening area tuning in for the reading of the serial number, and by the end, 1-5%, before dropping down to, say, 0.2-0.5% after the contest is over. Early on, there's a 1 in a 1000 chance of someone listening having the bill, more or less, so the contest won't end too early, but by the end, you are up to a 1-in-20 chance, so once it gets popular enough, it will end fast enough that people don't get too much into grumbling that your contest is rigged. Meanwhile, the radio station probably didn't actually put up the $30,000 -- it was probably an advertiser who paid the radio station $40,000 out of their advertising budget to run the contest, or should I say, the Wonder Widget's daily drawing, brought to you by Wonder Widgets, your wonderful source of wonderful widgets. You repeat the advertiser's slogan three or four times as people are tuning in to the station to listen for the day's serial number, and three or four more times throughout the day reminding people to tune in at X o'clock. There's no need for the contest to be rigged or unwinnable -- it's a bargain for everyone at half the price. The advertiser knows people are listening to their ads, the radio station is getting paid outright as well as getting a boost in their listeners (which gets them more money from other advertisers). And actually paying out the money, eventually, lets you go back to that same gold mine again and again.

eutectic 6y ago

That would be illegal.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago
It's only a crime if you get caught. Anyway, I know lotteries and gambling are regulated, what about e.g. radio or charity raffles?
- Loughla 6y ago
  Yes, radio, charity, and other raffles are regulated. I encourage you to search for [your state] raffle statute. Or [your city/county] raffle statute.
  - jacobr1 6y ago
    One of the common regulations you often hear about is "no purchase necessary" - even for games where most player get a chance to win by purchasing a product, they still need to provide some other mechanism like mailing in a request.
  - ehnto 6y ago
    Just because it is illegal doesn't mean it's not done. I've seen plenty of faux competitions ran successfully without consequence. Same with email signup regulations. Plenty of laws and regulations, yet it's really hard for people to get caught and fined for misbehaving.
    - Retric 6y ago
      The same is true of shoplifting etc. Getting caught has nothing to do with something being a crime.
    - zip1234 6y ago
      How many people break a traffic law every single time they drive and don't get caught>?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

saalweachter 6y ago

Oh, no. Ooooh, no. So, thinking about how you would run this contest, you've got three basic ways of generating a random serial number. The first is literally generating a random serial number; the problem being, there is an infinitesimal chance the serial number you just generated is in the pocket of someone in your listening area. The second is to choose a sibling serial number of a bill in your pocket -- change one of the last couple of digits. If you're lucky, the sibling bills will have been delivered to the same bank in the same area and still be in circulation. But there's still a pretty slim chance it's even possible. The best way to ensure that your contest is actually winnable, that your target bill is in circulation would be to start the contest by taking all the bills from your collective pockets, at the studio, writing down the serial numbers, and then handing them to someone to go buy coffee for the studio across the street. Wait a week or two, and your target bills will have circulated through the area enough, but almost certainly be in the pockets of people who could tune in and listen, and not someone halfway across the country. So enter the 100,000 $1 bills sitting in stacks in this dude's house. Not circulating. At first, this isn't a problem -- he took out the bills after the contest start, after all -- but as time goes on, and the studio repeats the process of tagging and releasing new bills in circulation to generate new numbers to call out, suddenly, there is no chance that any of these hundred-thousand bills you are laboriously checking will work.

giarc 6y ago
Even if they physically had the bill and ensured it was in circulation in the city, the chances that someone has it and is listening to that radio station is so small. The radio station had to know it was an unwinnable contest. Why anyone would think they could win the contest is beyond me!
- saalweachter 6y ago
  I don't know enough about this particular contest -- and since it happened in 1984, I'm not going to attempt to find more information on the internet -- but typically the goal isn't to have an unwinnable contest, just to have it drag on long enough while drawing more and more people into listening. At the start of the contest, you might have 0.1% of the people in your listening area tuning in for the reading of the serial number, and by the end, 1-5%, before dropping down to, say, 0.2-0.5% after the contest is over. Early on, there's a 1 in a 1000 chance of someone listening having the bill, more or less, so the contest won't end too early, but by the end, you are up to a 1-in-20 chance, so once it gets popular enough, it will end fast enough that people don't get too much into grumbling that your contest is rigged. Meanwhile, the radio station probably didn't actually put up the $30,000 -- it was probably an advertiser who paid the radio station $40,000 out of their advertising budget to run the contest, or should I say, the Wonder Widget's daily drawing, brought to you by Wonder Widgets, your wonderful source of wonderful widgets. You repeat the advertiser's slogan three or four times as people are tuning in to the station to listen for the day's serial number, and three or four more times throughout the day reminding people to tune in at X o'clock. There's no need for the contest to be rigged or unwinnable -- it's a bargain for everyone at half the price. The advertiser knows people are listening to their ads, the radio station is getting paid outright as well as getting a boost in their listeners (which gets them more money from other advertisers). And actually paying out the money, eventually, lets you go back to that same gold mine again and again.