Huh, Apple Opens The App Store To Lottery Apps

For those of you with compulsive gambling tendencies, owning an iPhone might soon become somewhat of a problem. In what looks like a very strange move, Apple is now allowing lottery-style applications in the App Store. Apparently, the iPhone SDK terms are now very tolerant with developers who want to include promotional sweepstakes and contest functionalities in their app:

3.3.17 Your Application may include promotional sweepstake or contest functionality provided that You are the sole sponsor of the promotion and that You and Your Application comply with any applicable laws

A first app of this kind, Ka-Ching, is actually already available and offers you a chance at winning a $1000 contest on March 15th by downloading the app and simply pressing a button. While we're still at the beginning of the movement, this evolution is guaranteed to provoke a surge in similar crappy apps making the App Store a much less attractive place. Bad news. [via AppFreak]

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