In the platonia dilemma introduced in Douglas Hofstadter's book Metamagical Themas,[1] an eccentric trillionaire gathers 20 people together, and tells them that if one and only one of them sends them a telegram (reverse charges) by noon the next day, that person will receive a billion dollars.
A similar game, referred to as a "Luring Lottery", was actually played by the editors of Scientific American in the 1980s.
Thus a reader who submitted a large number of entries increased their chances of winning but reduced the maximum possible value of the prize.
Although the magazine had previously discussed the concept of superrationality from which the above-mentioned algorithm can be deduced, many of the contestants submitted entries consisting of an astronomically large number (including several who entered a googolplex).
Some took this game further by filling their postcards with mathematical expressions designed to evaluate to the largest possible number in the limited space allowed.