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Is it illegal to con people into thinking you have a perfect ability to pick football games by emailing out two lists: one picking one team, and the other picking the other team, and only sending... (lemmy.dbzer0.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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...the next pick to the people who saw you pick the "winner". Now half of those people see one team, the other half see you pick the other team, and whoever saw you pick the winner thinks you've got a 100% accuracy rate over two games. You could do that for a while and then offer to sell your pick for the Superbowl. Starting with a big enough group in the beginning, this might be really lucrative.

But is it legal?

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I heard about this years ago but with stock picking and sending letters through the mail.

I'm sure it's illegal AF. But feel free to try it out and let us know.

If you're interested in that, here's a whole list of confidence tricks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_confidence_tricks

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

It's specifically the Psychic Sports Picks Trick. And the answer is that it would be illegal at the point OP actually asks for money at the end.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What OP is suggesting is actually in that Wikipedia article. Apparently it's called "Baltimore Stockbroker / Psychic Sports Picks".

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Thanks for finding it.