In Taiwan, just by buying anything you wind up in a lottery. Taiwan encourages businesses to use receipts so that they can keep track of sales for tax purposes. To get stores to issue receipts, every receipt has a lottery number. Every two months, customers can compare their accumulated receipt numbers to the winning numbers. So customers are happy to shop at stores that issue receipts. Other stores that don't want the government to have an accurate accounting of their sales don't issue receipts. The receipts are a way for the government to encourage businesses to record their business.
The payoff matrix for receipts is like:
3 digits correct - 200NT ~ 7 dollars(US)
4 digits - 1000NT ~ 33 dollars(US)
5 digits - 4000NT ~ 132 dollars(US)
up to
specific numbers 10,000,000 NT ~ 33,000 dollars US
I have receipts, so I could be a big winner.
After sorting them into two month intervals. I had:
Checking the numbers against the numbers on the website, I thought I had one receipt with 4 numbers correct(1000NT,~33US). But then I realized it was for the wrong two month period.
Oh well, in the next 2 month period, I'm sure I'll be a big winner!
I know in the US this kind of social engineering can make a difference. Lots are against cameras catching speeders and automatically issuing traffic tickets. But if those caught on camera obeying the speed limits were given a small reward, it would be a much more popular program. Programs with carrots and sticks are more popular than those with only sticks.
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