HYIP games

As a result of online forums and monitoring sites which have made HYIP investors more aware of their nature, a different sort of "honest" HYIP began springing up in the early months of 2006. Basically, the HYIP owner calls his or her program a "ponzi-structured game" where one should "not invest money one cannot afford to lose", and where there is "never a guarantee of earnings or refunds". They promise to pay out up to (for example) 95% of deposits, the rest going to hosting or other fees and the owner's profit.

In such "games", the first participants ("investors") may make a good profit and are encouraged to refer other people to the program because of referral commission, the fact that they have already made back their principal and are playing with profit, and that the more people who deposit money, the more money can be paid out to participants. In theory, strategies can be developed to maximize profit using these games (but, of course, since this is a zero-sum game, such strategies work by taking advantage of ignorance or errors by others). Some forum users may gain a reputation whereby others will trust their word that they have been able to withdraw their profits, encouraging others to invest in the hopes that more will invest after them and that they can therefore make a profit. As these games are by definition Ponzi schemes, it is inevitable that the vast majority of investors who are not at the top of the pyramid will lose their money.

These "games" might be considered as lotteries. However, the odds of winning cannot be determined, as one cannot know whether one is playing early enough to win money (that is, whether a sufficient number of new participants will follow). Thus, these activities are unlike a lottery or other forms of gambling, where a player has an equal chance of winning no matter when a ticket is bought, or where the odds of the game are known.