At its best this class of 'contest' run by individuals for small sums is an unethical abuse of people's nature to over-estimate their chances by using a set-up that obscures the tiny average rate of return, at its worse it *is* fraud where the winner is always a friend of the operator or a sock-puppet of the operator themselves. And what's more, there is no way for the people entering the contest to tell the difference between merely being taken for a sucker or being defrauded!
At its best this class of 'contest' run by individuals for small sums is an unethical abuse of people's nature to over-estimate their chances by using a set-up that obscures the tiny average rate of return, at its worse it *is* fraud where the winner is always a friend of the operator or a sock-puppet of the operator themselves. And what's more, there is no way for the people entering the contest to tell the difference between merely being taken for a sucker or being defrauded!