A rogue Romanian economist legally gamed the lottery
When I was in my final year of high school, Coca-cola was giving away an iPod Nano to lucky winners who entered codes from plastic bottle caps or glass bottle labels.<p>An iPod was given away once per day, except Monday, when they were given out once per hour. I was competing against the rest of Switzerland. Each code had to be entered on a website, earning 0, 5, 10, 20 or 50 points. You could then choose how many points to gamble during the day&#x2F;hour, and would hear at the end of the day&#x2F;hour whether you won.<p>The school had a bottle-cap recycling bin. Every day, I dug through that looking for Coke caps. I volunteered for GAOS (a theatre group) and served drinks outside their show, collecting many paper wrappers from glass bottles.<p>After collecting 1500 points, at 2 am on a Monday night, I struck with half my points. And I failed! Shocked, I tried again at 3 am, risking all the remaining points I&#x27;d saved up. And I won! I was the &quot;lucky&quot; recipient of a 2GB iPod Nano.<p>Was it worth it? Yes, because I was under the employment age. I couldn&#x27;t have earned money legally, so my opportunity cost of time was low.<p>Earlier, in primary school, the classes bought Pizza Hut once a week. During a promotion, their pizza boxes were printed with stars, which could be saved up and exchanged for free pizza. So I went around and asked all the teachers for their old boxes, cut out the stars, and got a second pizza every week!<p>If only it were that easy for me to find a job nowadays, despite a first-class MEng in Electronic Systems Engineering and 4 years continuous relevant work experience. Even trying to follow the rules and get all the qualifications doesn&#x27;t seem to work.