Aboat That Math Question
Posted by
tgirsch
I asked earlier about a goofy provision in a Canadian sweepstakes rule that required the winner to answer a math question. A few people confirmed that this is required, but nobody answered why it’s required. Then a coworker enlightened me, and the answer is funner than expected:
The combined effect of Sections 197 to 206 of the Canadian Criminal Code bans for-profit gaming or betting, with exceptions made for provincial lotteries, and licensed casinos and charity events. Many stores, radio stations, and other groups still wish to hold contests to encourage more purchases or increase consumer interest. … These organizations take advantage of the fact that the law does allow prizes to be given for games of skill, or mixed games of skill and chance. In order to make the chance-based contests legal, such games generally have mathematical skill-testing questions incorporated.
So the math question is a way to get the contest reclassified as a game that “mixes skill and chance.” In other words, it’s a loophole1 in the Canadian law against illegal lotteries!
Of course, it seems the Canadian high court can be as pragmatic as ours:
The most common form that these questions take is as an arithmetic exercise. A court decision ruled that these must contain at least three operations to actually be skill testing; for example, a common question might be “(2 × 4) + (10 × 3)” (Answer: 38). Enforcement of these rules is not very stringent, and especially for small prizes, the player may not be required to answer the skill-testing question to claim a prize. Anecdotally, getting the answer wrong is also often not an obstacle to claiming a prize.
1 No doubt, Uncle will protest this use of the term “loophole.” Uncle doesn’t believe in loopholes (they’re right there with global warming on the list of things that Uncle rejects).
While not rejecting the term entirely, I can sympathise with a weariness about the frequency with which the words ‘loophole’ and ‘technicality’ are used to dismiss important rules of law. Often ‘they got off on a technicality’ is used to mean ‘there wasn’t enough evidence’ or ‘they had a statutory defence.’
But then I would think that where a provision is used in a way not foreseen / intended by the legislature so as to circumvent the whole point of a rule, that would probably count as a loophole. On the other hand, the fact that it has not yet been remedied suggests tacit acceptance of the practice, so perhaps the term is no longer useful…
I’m not quite sure why I spent two paragraphs saying that.
Comment 4/24/2006
Anyone else amused the quoted passage felt the need to provide the answer to the example given?
Comment 4/24/2006
the mass of a dollar bill is aboat [a] 1 milligram
[b] 1 gram
[c] 1kilogram
Comment 1/29/2008