Rules is Rules

Fernando has a weekly drawing at the Dominion of Movies. Every time someone comes in to rent or buy a movie, he or she fills out a slip of paper for a gift certificate for free rentals. A short set of rules was posted near the bucket but they mostly described how one won and the limits of entry (as much as you wanted). It used to be the case that Fernando would allow people to fill them out even when not renting, but one day that privilege was heavily strained and ultimately revoked.

A teenager came into the store with four of his buddies. They putter about for roughly twenty minutes, spending most of the time loudly proclaiming about how “awesome” this or that particular horror movie is, before the leader finally selects an older rental and brings it to the counter. Fernando goes about filling out the rental slip, taking the gent's money, and retrieving the film while the teen and his buddies begin stuffing the ballot box, as it were.

When Fernando sees them tearing through his meager stock of fill-out slips in a frenzy of contest entering, he says, “You know, it's one per visit.”

“Doesn't say that on the rules,” said the ringleader, and he is actually correct. The rules say nothing about limiting the number of entries per visit.

“That may be so, but it's not really fair to the other people who enter.”

“They should do it too then. Nothing's stopping them.”

“You're right...you're right,” Fernando agrees. He scoops his hand into the bucket and removes a handful of slips, then begins picking through them, crumpling up and disposing of the renter's duplicates and the ones submitted by the four not-renters.

“Hey, you can't do that!” one of the associates says.

Fernando does not look up from his sorting. “The rules don't say anything about that.”

“Yeah they do! They say anyone can enter!”

“Correct. They do not, however, guarantee anyone can win.” The troop of recent pubescents exit the store in a huff and Fernando immediately undertakes a necessary project: a new set of rules to explicitly close that nasty, textual loophole.