OK, one thing I do apologize for is the long delay in posting about this. I'm actually on a short holiday with my wife and am not online much, but now that she's asleep I'll go a little more in-depth.
Here's what I posted about this in our mod forum thread after a fellow mod noticed the threads and asked about it:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bobo Fett
Lottery ticket reselling is illegal in most, if not all, North American jurisdictions. Lottery tickets themselves aren't going to be legal in many jurisdictions. Lottery ticket reselling across state lines would be bad enough, across countries would be even worse.
This may not be quite the same as reselling, but it's close enough that I don't think we should allow it. Could be exposing 2+2 to legal troubles IMO.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bobo Fett
I'm slightly more familiar with it because BC (my province) is sadly well-known for scams selling lottery tickets to old people in Florida.
Also, imagine if anyone actually won the big prize. First, you have a HUGE motivation for someone to keep the money, which would be a massive scam and an enormous black eye for 2+2. And if they did come through, what a nightmare to try and move the money.
Nothing but trouble here IMO. I've locked it for now and am open to other opinions, but it'll have to be some pretty compelling stuff.
Now, these particular lotteries may allow reselling or "pools", but that's not going to be the case with every lottery, and we're not going to be combing through the laws to find out. And even if it is allowed, I'd be
very surprised if they'd allow it to be done with vig. Then you have the problem of whether it would be allowed to be sold to specific countries that posters might be from.
And it makes me cringe to think of the scams possible here. First off, and I'm not suggesting that this would happen with either thread here, but I have to think there's a decent possibility with enough of these threads that if a ticket came in with a $10-$100 million dollar winner, people would never see their money. This seems like a great way for scammers to freeroll the lottery, never mind the possibility of someone photoshopping bogus tickets and never buying any at all.
Basically, while I understand there are risks with both scams and legality with many things we allow here, they are much higher with this than most others. It sucks because I know this is just something fun people would like to do, but I think it's just too much of a risk for us to take.