Greedy Generosity was an online lottery concept that me and my friend and a hugely talented game designer Michael Highland came up with when we lived together in Hong Kong.

The concept was simple—for a pre-defined time period users could bet on cells arranged in a square grid. At the end of the time limit, somebody would be randomly picked as a winner and win the jackpot. The twist was in that when the user was placing his bet, he could decide how much of the potential winnings he was willing to give away to a charity. The odds of winning increased the more the user was open to donate; donate all, though, and you don’t personally benefit from your bet (other than perhaps feeling good). Furthermore, the user could place a number of bets on the same cell which also affected his chance of winning.

The concept was based on a hypothesis that people would be willing to bet more if they had both a chance for personal profit and for doing something good, and explored the dynamic tension between selfishness and altruism. Hence the name, Greedy Generosity.

For some time Michael and I discussed ways of implementing the project, but after learning more about the complex laws governing lotteries and gambling in general, we decided that it would be too much trouble. Michael later flashed out the concept in much greater detail and developed a simple play-money prototype and proof of concept. You can check it out here.

The screenshot is from the prototype.

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