The piles of money, tumbling lottery numbers and breathless announcements that greet Iranian television viewers before the nightly 9 o'clock news might seem untoward for this Muslim society, governed as it is by the rules of a religion that largely forbids gambling.
Players buy tickets to help flood victims.
They buy tickets to help orphans and the poor. But the cash, sponsors say, is at best a secondary motivation here in the Islamic republic. They are not gambling. It is not some sort of match or race. . . . There is no win or lose.