a lotto is a system where all the content comes from the customers themselves. this is a key element in successful web sites. auctions, online dating, the customers are paying for value that came from the customers themselves. the web site provides a mechanism to receive their offerings and then aggregates it and sells the aggregation. Tim OReilly went over this during his keynote at OSCON.

With a lotto, all the contributions are money. im going to avoid talking about why lottos are popular, etc. because i just started the work day. the reason i mention it is slashdot's article about Iowa Electronic Markets which is a "real-money futures markets in which contract payoffs depend on economic and political events such as elections." That sounds like a grey area between financial services and gambling.