Children of Chernobyl lottery

Children of Chernobyl lottery, originally uploaded by trexfiles23.

In 1993, American doctor Robert Gale wanted to raise money to help the relief effort for people affected by the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown. His strategy: to take advantage of the new post-Soviet market economy by selling lottery tickets.

Here in the U.S., efforts were made to make sure this lottery was on the up-and-up. Peat Markwick was brought in to help administer it; a leading lottery firm printed the tickets; a licensing system was set up to distribute tickets in Russia.

Seemed like a good idea at the time.

The unintended consequence of this effort, however, was to help undermine confidence in Russia charity itself. Charitable lotteries sprung up like mushrooms, with no way of verifying that they were legit. Counterfeit tickets appeared. Even the Children of Chernobyl lottery itself seemed untrustworthy--after all, what ordinary Russian citizen could know for sure that there really was a top prize to be announced & distributed in Kentucky?