The Coffee Lottery
I have a new idea. Well, Evan had a new idea.
As I’ve noted, the $2 PayPal coffee has essentially failed. It was a pretty good idea, but it just didn’t “take” very well. Now I’m up to something new.
It’s the $2 PayPal coffee, version 2.0. I’m still in it for the coffee (and the nookie). If you like the site and you donate, I’m still gonna buy coffee with it. But now you can get something out of the deal: a coffee of your own, or perhaps some other overpriced item. Now there’s a point to giving money.
Donations are a tough sell
It’s pretty hard to get a donation, no matter how clever your idea is. Asking for a cup of coffee and making it painless to give $2 (via PayPal) is a fairly clever angle on the “Spare some change?” theme, but it’s a donation nonetheless. People don’t like to just give their money away. They prefer to invest it, and failing that, to give it to someone who has no money.
Hey, I’ve got a secret to tell you. I’m not broke. So I was asking readers to give $2 of their hard-earned dough to me, a guy who has some money, just because they like this stupid website so much. Are you surprised it was a failure?
Donations in self-interest
Forget the idea of a donation. Consider the lottery. Many people are more willing to play the lottery than to donate money. Why? Because something’s in it for them. In a sense, however, the lottery player is donating to the lottery organizer (usually a state), since we know via the law of large numbers that you’re bound to lose out in the end. I think most people do understand this, but they’re willing to “donate” to lottery anyhow.
Consider the casino. If you weren’t aware that the lottery wins over time with lots of players, you must be aware that the casino wins. The mere sight of the glitz and glam and free prime rib tells you something is awry. The casino is winning, and the jamokes at the slots are not.
The coffee lottery
Now. The new idea.
This is no longer a pure donation. This is a lottery. Play the Coffee Lottery if you like this website. Play if you appreciate something here. This is a donation, in the same sense that the Pick 4 and the craps table is a donation, but you can gain too. The idea:
- Donations are in increments of $2.
- The basic donation is $2 (equivalent to one cup of coffee), but if you donate more, you have an appropriately higher chance of winning. ($4 = 2 cups of coffee = 2 donations = 2 chances. And so on.)
- Please donate via PayPal funds — funds in PayPal or a bank account — not a credit card. (I don’t have a Business/Premier PayPal account, which is required to receive these type of transactions.
- The lottery is limited to 20 donations.
- Progress of the campaign, which maxes out at $40, will be shown in the sidebar.
- The order in which donations are submitted will be tracked. Each donating user will be assigned a number between 1 and 20 (inclusive).
- When the $40 goal is reached, I will randomly select a number from 1 to 20. This will be accomplished via this link using a random number generator (see random.org for more info).
- The donating user whose number is selected will receive half of the pot: $20. I will pay the winner via PayPal.
- I will keep the remaining $20.
There you have it. Statistically speaking, the return on your $2 donation is $1. (There is a specific name for this stat but I forget it.) Interested? Donate away!
UPDATE: I decided it was only fair to automatically enter folks who participated in the $2 PayPal coffee, so they’re in now. Because of their addition, I raised the lottery amount to $40.
July 18th, 2006 at 12:23 am
I expect royalty payments. And if you get busted for gambling, I’m not culpable.
July 18th, 2006 at 1:48 am
I’ll be the guinea pig. Who’ll join me?
July 18th, 2006 at 4:50 am
I need to get a PayPal account apparently. This sounds fun.
July 18th, 2006 at 8:58 am
Well, since our government may actually ban online gambling, you might have to come up with a new idea in the near future ;)
July 18th, 2006 at 9:50 am
I’m not so sure that lotteries are exactly legal without permission from the gov’t.
Just something to be aware of.
July 18th, 2006 at 10:47 am
I urge all readers to take the two dollars you were considering spending here and giving it to a bum. At least the bum will use it to buy street wine and drink away the troubles of his life for a few short hours, whereas Tom will use it to buy coffee and talk excitedly about Javascript, the Illini Hoops team, how he’s a “cleaning machine,” or the emmaculate Evanston Taco Bell. Eat that sherman!
July 18th, 2006 at 11:41 am
Nobrainer: Then consider it a donation and a gift back. :)
p.s. The government can kiss my ass.
July 18th, 2006 at 11:48 am
Ryan: Can’t argue with that. I’m not gonna deny a destitute drunk his Special Export just so I can get a froo-froo coffee.
July 18th, 2006 at 12:16 pm
i have already given and since then have become a regular reader. i don’t care if you are a millionaire. your original idea was cool and now is even cooler being a lottery. keep it up. you rock!
July 18th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
“Statistically speaking, the return on your $2 donation is $1″ How do you figure? You have a 1 in 20 chance of winning, or 5% chance. Seems to me your return on $2 is 10 cents!
July 18th, 2006 at 2:37 pm
Dad: You have a 5% chance of winning 10x your donation.
(0.05)(10)($2) = $1
Another way of saying this is that the expected value of a $2 donation is $1. (That’s the term I couldn’t remember.)
July 19th, 2006 at 5:10 pm
You might not want to call it a lottery, on your PayPal payment button anyway.
“Payment For: Coffee Lottery”
That’s asking for the PayPal police to freeze all our accounts and take all our money.
I would have put in more money, but… I’m afraid of them… I need my account for eBay…
July 19th, 2006 at 5:47 pm
Good point. Will change…
July 19th, 2006 at 5:58 pm
Done. And I can’t believe they would go after *you*, Ryan. They’d bust my ass.
July 21st, 2006 at 7:46 am
mmmmm…. coffeh
what you need to do with $2 is invest it in coffee stock…
or
buy direct from the coffee makers that are hurting down in south america… that would give people extra incentive to donate ( http://www.fairtradefederation.org/memcof.html)
July 21st, 2006 at 10:35 am
Andrew,
Actually, I just wrote a few days ago about my favorite coffee, which is fair trade. Starbucks is a poor substitute.
August 2nd, 2006 at 2:25 am
What if the “jackpot” never reaches $40? Will it automatically stop and be played with the actual amount collected after a predetermined amount of time.
August 2nd, 2006 at 10:22 am
Re: #17.. haven’t thought about that, but if I can’t scrounge up $40, I probably don’t deserve any of it. :)
August 3rd, 2006 at 10:21 pm
hi
August 3rd, 2006 at 10:24 pm
ok the coffe thing is a bad idea no offense. but u have to be preety stupd to think u will actually get anything. so i agree with dad. so poeple let tom by his own fuking coffe he even said he wasn’t broke!
October 12th, 2006 at 1:33 pm
I ran across your site while just surfing around, wanted to say hi and I like the blog.