"A site for sore losers"
There are lots of ways to make money from the lotteries. The method you choose merely depends on how impatient you are, how greedy you are, and how willing you are to look death in the face.
In The Lemon Drop Kid, a 1952 movie based on the Damon Runyon short story, Bob Hope plays the eponymous hero who makes a precarious living at the race track. With his tip sheet and Racing Form in hand, he sidles up to a patron and says something like, "Number one, Blue Bonnet is set to win. I got it straight from the guy who fixed the race!" Then he finds another trusting person and tells him, "Put everything you got on number two, Red Rover. He's been fixed to win." To someone else he says, "The race is a fix! Number three, Green Valley...." And so on. After the race, he locates the delighted winner and collects a suitable reward. Of course there are a bunch of enraged losers who'd also like to give him a suitable reward, but that's the rest of the movie.
There's a guy going around the 'net who has developed a mathematically unbeatable system for predicting winning roulette numbers. And he'll even let you participate in his scheme. You only have to pay him if you win anything. And if you lose, then you obviously didn't use his system properly. Do it again until you get it right.
The details may differ, but the principle is the same: You're gambling with other people's money. And of course it can be done with lotteries.
Many years ago, before lotteries got really established in the USA, I saw an advertisement offering Canadian lotteries by mail. The ad stated that the seller would hold on to the tickets, and if the buyer won anything, the seller would notify them and send an official prize claim form.
I thought up a refinement to that method. I would send the customer the tickets, but first I'd check if they'd won. Then I'd put them in a metered envelope, with the postage meter set back to the previous day. The customer would then get their tickets in an envelope postmarked the day before the official draw date.
I didn't do it for a number of good reasons. For one thing, I learned that the Post Office does not like metered mail with the wrong date. It makes them look bad. So, to preserve their reputation, they'll put a new postmark on top, one with today's date, and send you a friendly note advising you not do that again. Or else.
Another thing is the sheer numbers involved. In order to win a million on the 6/49, I would have to process a lot of ticket orders. A lot, as in millions. As in a thousand orders a day for forty years. That's a lot of stamps to lick.
If that doesn't light any fires under you, then you might take a shine to these other methods.
For this you will need a few simple pieces of equipment:
Whenever someone orders a lottery ticket off your site, send them an email thanking them and explaining that "under international regulations" you cannot send them the actual ticket, but should they win, you will promptly transmit the prize to them. Be sure to include the numbers, draw date, and link to the lottery company website, so they can check if they win anything.
Keep track of the numbers, and check them for winners. If a ticket wins anything, immediately send that amount to the customer, together with your congratulations. Ask if they'd like to buy some more tickets.
If they win a jackpot, then promptly send them the full amount. Trust me, you'll be able to afford it.
Needless to say, you don't actually buy any tickets. Just pocket the money. Keep half for expenses and prize payouts, and spend the rest on assorted debaucheries.
What you're doing is running your own lottery. Unfortunately, there is a good reason why so few people are using this method. Governments have a bad attitude toward competition. And as soon as they find out you're trying to horn in on their little monopoly, they may provide you with some free time to think about your mistake, along with a roommate who thinks you have a real pretty mouth.
Here's a bit of friendly advice. If some poor distraught individual comes up to you with a tearful story about how he has this million-dollar-winning ticket, and he dare not cash it in for fear that his picture will appear in the papers with the result that he will be discovered and sent back to the Third World, but that he will gladly sell it for ten thousand dollars so that he can pay the medical expenses for his sweet invalid mother.... If that ever happens, place a comforting arm around his shoulder, tell him you feel his pain, and then gutpunch him. Next, grab his hair and slam his face a few times into a convenient lamp post, then hurl him to the ground and stomp him until your feet get tired, and finally, finally, shove that million-dollar-winning ticket straight to the bottom of his lying throat.
Or you can play it slick. Tell him that you'd love to help out, but all you have is this certified bank draft for eleven thousand dollars. Now, if he can give you change....
The "I'll sell you a winning lottery ticket" scam is as old as the hills. And not ordinary hills, either; it's as old as old hills, hills that have been swept bare by the unceasing winds till there's nothing left but gentle rises amid the trackless plains, hills so ancient and weatherworn that it would take an implausible surplus of charity to dignify with the name of hills, hills that might have once been hills but have since been scoured into valleys. That old. And yet the reason it hasn't died of old age is that it still works. People still fall for it, proving the unquenchable spirit of human gullibility. And it's not that people are greedy or stupid—smart people have been conned into donating to phony charities. It's that people are very good at making themselves believe things, and smart people do it best of all. The con man (or, for that matter, the lottery company) merely has to nudge the mark in the right direction, and their imaginations take over. It's a subject for a future essay.
So in case you're wondering, yes, you can make money selling "winning" lottery tickets to trusting individuals. But before you try it, just remember that it is an old scam and lots of people have heard of it, people who might not take kindly to your pitch. I also happen to be out there, too. And I'm not going to fall for that scam again.
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