[OT] Could a Canadian explain this to me?

[Dark Psion]

Could a Canadian explain this to me?

I was on I Won.com and accidentally clicked on the rules to one of their contests and this caught my eye;

"To be declared a Winner, a potential winner from Canada will be required to correctly answer, without assistance of any kind, whether mechanical or otherwise, a 4-function mathematical skill-testing question in no more than 5 minutes, the test to be administered by telephone. If a potential winner from Canada cannot be contacted and the skill test administered within five (5) days of notification, or the question is not correctly answered, the prize will be forfeited and an alternate winner will be selected."


This contest has a "Odds of winning Grand Prize 1: 99,884,400" already, but if you are Canadian, you still have to answer a Pop Quiz???

 

[Darkness]

Added OT tag.

- Darkness

 

[I'm A Banana]

Bloody fudge!

I knew Canadia had a bad rap, but I didn't know it was considered the New Stupidia of the world.

As far as I know, you guys are still all good. ^_^

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

Sounds like a way for them to avoid giving out any prizes. If they call you and say

"QUICK! Suppose that f-> H(D) satisfies the inequality |f(z)-1|<1. Show that Integral [f'(z)/f(z) dz] = 0 for every closed path gamma. Conclude Rouche's theorem! "

chances are they aren't going to have to give away any money.

 

[Winterthorn]

We Canadians tend to be a tad bureacratic for our own good at times... Just look at some our governments.

-W.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

I believe it has something to do with contest regulations. To win anything in Canada it seems you must answer a skill-testing question successfully...

I have no idea why.

 

[madriel]

Apparently, if we just won something, that'd qualify as illegal gambling. Answering the skill-testing question correctly makes it a reward for a skilled competition instead.

Don't worry, it doesn't make any sense to us either.

 

[angramainyu]

In Canada, it applies to just about every give-away or prize thing you can think of. My aunt one a trip from a radio station, and had to answer a "skill testing question" for that.

At least they make them easy for those who forget the order of operations, by putting the multiplication and division before the addition and subtraction.

 

[Oubliette]

I heard once that it had something to do with ensuring that the winner actually existed (ie wasn't dead).

I know that doesn't make any sense, but it was explained to me and afterward I remember saying " that has it's own twisted logic", of course I can't remember the explenation right now.

...though the illegal gambling explenation holds water as well.


*It's alway something stupid like 4x3/2+1-2=?

 

[Rashak Mani]

Probably to avoid money laundering of some sort ? I hope the questions are easy...