Situational Ethics, a question

alinwa said:
Bill, I'm curious, in what way was the raffle situation depicted by TomD "questionable?"

I'm asking this in full seriousness, humans fascinate me :)
al
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I have seen with my own eyes....twice....the person drawing tickets palm the winning ticket.....
bill larson
 
HovisKM said:
Goodgrouper,

I am guessing either the father put the sons name on his ticket or the son was a member. Either way, I don't really see the problem? If the son was a member and he won, I figure he can do whatever he wants with it and if the father put his sons name on the ticket for fun, who cares. Well, I guess those who didn't win did but I bet you a million that if the tables were turned, they wouldn't give it up.

Hovis
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The problem lies in the fact that these tags are not transferable. The son can't give it to his dad legally, and he can't use it himself this year. But because his dad "greased the wheels" a bit with auction buys, they handed him the grand prize despite the obvious white elephant in the room. I just can't see how that is fair, and I would not have felt right about it had it been me.
 
bill larson said:
I have seen with my own eyes....twice....the person drawing tickets palm the winning ticket.....
bill larson
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There have been two complaints about this very thing in years past at the raffle I mentioned. One of my friends personally saw the drawer palm a ticket. And there was one guy who lives in my county that has drawn two raffle tags kinda like Al's example. The odds of drawing once............in the hundreds. Twice, come on. Something's going on.........
 
OK, palming a ticket is just cheap..... cheating. Why didn't someone call it out? Any raffles I've been privy to they have a total stranger step up and pull tickets with their fingers in plain view of everyone. I can't imagine ANYone sleazy enough to palm a ticket in public. Whoever it was, wherever it was I'd leave that organization for fear of being associated with them.

slime

In the case of my friend there's zero chance of collusion, and if that needs to be explained then, A'gain, you're hanging out with the wrong people!

At some NBRSA matches I was attending I saw evidence of favoritism, some of it directed in my favor. I complained loudly and publicly and things cleared right up.

I don't play if the field's not level.

Same applies to my work. Not to make this political, (altho it IS) but we've got towns out here that have fallen into corruption, "The Good Ol Boy Networking" system. It's not acceptable, over time we rout them out. I've confronted mayors and building departments, gotten rules changes and clarified. I'm a capitalist, I don't want to be on anyone's "favorites" list.


All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing. . . . Edmund Burke.

al
 
alinwa said:
OK, palming a ticket is just cheap..... cheating. Why didn't someone call it out?
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They did, after it was over. I was told lawyers got involved, the State considered banning raffles, but in the end it was decided that a third party or someone ineligible to win could handle the raffle drawings. So that's where it's at now. Shocking to me it's still allowed since my state is very much anti-lottery. It's so bad that we have to have Nevada conduct our hunt drawings because it's considered a "lottery" here! So why one lottery is ok but the other isn't is beyond me.....??

As to the raffle I saw this year, the drawing process was itself seemed fair (no cheating), but it still ended with a result that most folks felt a mess.
 
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TomD,

Listen to your wife. That is why we have them. If I understand the situation, the whole thing was to help the club and anyone could buy as many tickets as they felt comfortable with.

Concho Bill
 
Actually, there are two questions in Tom's post. One of ethics and another of character. I'm conviced (convinced myself) that nothing unethical occurred and character is in the eyes of the beholder.

If the Powerball lottery jackpot were 10 billion and you had enough money to buy every combination and the time to actually buy the tickets......would you?
 
Wilbur said:
Actually, there are two questions in Tom's post. One of ethics and another of character. I'm conviced (convinced myself) that nothing unethical occurred and character is in the eyes of the beholder.

If the Powerball lottery jackpot were 10 billion and you had enough money to buy every combination and the time to actually buy the tickets......would you?
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Now Tom, if you are like me, there would be no question of ethics if you had of won and the other guy had of bought the rest of the tickets.

About character. Read some of these threads. We are surrounded by characters. That is why we all read and post here.

Concho Bill
 
I noticed you seemed to take issue with his success rate not his purchase rate. In the end, he did, apparantly, what anybody could have done. No lack of character or ethics, also seemed his math skills were good.
 
I'll have to state my thesis again: When one person out of fifty, through extreme luck or whatever circumstance, wins an extraordinary number (14 out of 31) of the prizes, a gentleman or person of character would at some point defer further winnings. If you don't know this is true, we just have different viewpoints.
 
TomD said:
I'll have to state my thesis again: When one person out of fifty, through extreme luck or whatever circumstance, wins an extraordinary number (14 out of 31) of the prizes, a gentleman or person of character would at some point defer further winnings. If you don't know this is true, we just have different viewpoints.
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I think that's a very well written position.
 
TomD said:
I'll have to state my thesis again: When one person out of fifty, through extreme luck or whatever circumstance, wins an extraordinary number (14 out of 31) of the prizes, a gentleman or person of character would at some point defer further winnings. If you don't know this is true, we just have different viewpoints.
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Like a billionaire CEO that has employees carpooling to work because of low wages.
Or worse yet, those greedy people who take home most of the wood at a BR match!
 
TomD said:
When one person out of fifty, through extreme luck or whatever circumstance, wins an extraordinary number (14 out of 31) of the prizes, a gentleman or person of character would at some point defer further winnings.
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Being a drawing, it might be difficult for him to remove all of his tickets from the pot before any more drawings during that event; thus, it seems that you're suggesting that he should give his already won (earned) money to someone else. Does that sound like what some of the well-known political figures preach?

EDIT -- Upon further reflection, I agree that it would have been nice for him to have deferred; however, I'm not sure that it reflects badly on him that he did not. :)
 
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Circumstances alter cases. Tom was there and if he thinks the guy shoulda stopped winning stuff then I can find a way to go along. Tom knows the "spirit" of the event and the crowd that was there - just sayin'.
 
Everyone seems to have a little different spirit of generosity. When it comes to winning something seems to click in and give an adnereline rush. People like to win look at the lottery.
It takes some real character to for go our our needs and think of others.
Something similar to this I see on several boards is some guy who makes a buy on a firearm at an extremely low price from someone who didn't know what they had. Then they want to ask if they made a good deal and everyone says they got a seal. The guy seems real proud instead of giving the little old lady he bought it from some money back.
Deals that are steals are just that.
 
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