The Motley Fool Has a "Winner"?
A controversial ending to an already unorthodox day
 |
|
|||||
|
FOOLottery!®
|
||||||
By Kerra Lyons-Fitzhugh Internet entrepreneurs The Motley Fool took on the American
lottery system today... and lost. In less than 12 hours the company went from trying to overhaul
the lottery system with its online game -- FOOLottery! -- to
begging customers to stop
buying tickets. Early on, it looked like "the Fools," as they prefer to be
called, might actually challenge more established state-run
lotteries. FOOLottery! creator Larry McCloskey drew
in players with the promise of a 110% payout (compared to the
50% offered by state governments), free tickets for referring
friends, and senior discounts. Using the Internet, the company
attracted millions of players from 77 countries who pumped up the
pot to an amount that The Motley Fool claims was only $50 million,
although independent sources suggest it was closer to $210
million. But the promise of riches -- both for players and for
Motley Fool -- proved disastrous. In a midday press
release, the company announced that it was overwhelmed by the
number of players, a large percentage of whom played with free
promotional tickets. At 3:10 p.m., the company posted an open
letter on its website (www.fool.com) asking its customers,
amazingly, to "... please stop playing." The scheme then appeared
to collapse under the weight of poor financial management, driven
by a payout ratio that Bob Mortensen of Currency Today
called, simply, "Stupid." Facing imminent financial peril, The Motley Fool's Gardners were
compelled to perform the drawing as planned, after a ruling by
seventh circuit district judge Leo Horne called their hand. Controversy ensued when the final ball (pictured below) was
drawn. No independent third-party lottery officials were present
during the drawing. This, and Motley Fool's use of ping-pong balls
marked with hand-drawn characters, caused an uproar. Internet chat
rooms filled with angry FOOLottery! contestants. "I play a lot of these things -- the Pick Six,
ThunderNumber, Powerball, buncha others -- and this one was a crock
from the beginning," said one player, who goes by the Internet
handle "ernie78," a self-described videogame reviewer who said he
had printed out 116 tickets that he had not yet actually paid
for. A seeming lack of professionalism was further evidenced when,
with his company's survival at stake, Motley Fool Tom Gardner asked
for the call on the ball. Sources indicate that his brother David
cried: "An oh? A zero? I don't know which!" FOOLottery!'s rules stipulate use of
"animal-alphanumerics" -- numbers and letters, and an
animal -- in contrast to most lotteries, which limit players
to numbers only. But technology was not to blame; magic markers
were. Handwriting on the lottery balls (pictured above) did not
clearly distinguish between the letter "O" and the numeral zero
("0"). Met by reporters outside of The Motley Fool's offices and asked
why a worldwide Internet lottery would use "bingo parlor
technology" with tens of millions at stake, FOOLottery! chairman
Larry McCloskey said only, "This was our first one -- this one
was personal. Next question." Seven law firms have announced their intention to organize
class-action lawsuits and are asking players to contact them. For
its part, Motley Fool has invited contestant feedback at lottery@fool.com. "Whether you
loved our first day, or maybe were disappointed, we want to
hear from you," a company spokesman said. After a 40-minute meeting with their board and auditors,
FOOLottery! officials reaffirmed that there is no winner. The group
agreed to review all procedures and results next week during a
company retreat to Wala-Oala. In a late-breaking development, Chris Quinn of Channel 6 News
has obtained a photograph taken by security cameras at Motley Fool
that appears to show the brothers on premises 40 minutes after the
drawing. Elaine Zymanek of Littleton, Colo., who had discovered the
game on her daughter's PC that morning, asked a question on
many people's minds tonight. "So who gets the $125 million?"
Washington Gazette Bureau Correspondent
After 16 embarrassing hours, the
Gardner brothers
were left fearing for their company's survival, having
misunderstood the risk of their FOOLottery!
Their company's future on the
line,
the brothers draw the
final ball.
The winning numbers, letters, and
animal drawn at 4
p.m. 
RSS Headlines
Fool UK
