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A farmer's donkey dies. His son gets an idea on how to make some money.

Sometime later he turns up at dinner with $200. "Where did you get that money?" His father asks.

"I sold raffle tickets for the donkey" his son replied.

"What?!?" Shouts his father. "You can't sell raffle tickets for a donkey that you know has already died! Weren't people mad?"

"Just the guy who won" said the son, "so I gave him his money back."



Really, he'd want the value of a donkey - not his money back.

But with a raffle, the 'take' can easily exceed the cost of the prizes. So I guess the son would still make out ok.


He would want the value of the donkey. The son would offer the value of the tickets. Lawyers would make it somewhere in the middle. Then the lawyers would walk off with all the money.


This has been a valuable thought experiment for me.




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