Check out this strange language I spotted in the fine print for a contest that Esquire magazine is running:
Canadian winners will be required to correctly answer a mathematical testing question as a condition of receiving a prize.
Some googling shows the same line in the legalese for a contest on Redbook’s website, which suggests it’s part of the boilerplate used by Hearst, which owns both magazines. But why?
A little more digging and I learn that:
[L]otteries have three major components: the prizes have value, the sponsor benefits from the sweepstakes financially, and the winner is chosen at random. In order to avoid being an illegal private lottery, at least one of the three components must be removed.
In the United States, the sponsor usually removes the financial benefit component to avoid being classified as an illegal lottery. That is why most sweepstakes include statements in their rules that confirms that the entrant does not have to pay to enter, and that a purchase will not change the chances of winning.
Canadian sweepstakes law, unlike American law, requires that the third component, “winners are chosen by luck,” is removed. Sponsors cannot use pure luck to determine who wins a sweepstake. There must be at least some element of skill involved.
In order to remove the element of pure chance, sponsors narrow the field of potential winners by requiring a skill testing question to enter their contests. Every entrant does not have the same chance to win; only those who at least pass the skill testing question are eligible to win prizes. Of course, this is only a technicality. Most people can pass the skill testing questions without difficulty, although sponsors are required to make the test somewhat challenging.
The courts have agreed that a four-part mathematical test such as “155 plus 33 divided by 2 minus 12″ is enough to qualify as a skill-testing question.
All laws can be creatively skirted and are thus potentially rendered arbitrary, blah blah blah, but it’s a nice symbolic statement that things should be not left up to chance, pelf should be earned, windfalls should not be expected, etc. Good on you, Canada.
