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.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/hour, and would hear at the end of the day/hour whether you won.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.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'd saved up. And I won! I was the "lucky" recipient of a 2GB iPod Nano.Was it worth it? Yes, because I was under the employment age. I couldn't have earned money legally, so my opportunity cost of time was low.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!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't seem to work.