---
title: Paying money for a random chance at a prize works like gambling, and… — Loot boxes and the surprise trap · tree and pragmatics
description: Paying money for a random chance at a prize works like gambling, and some countries, such as Belgium, have treated paid loot boxes as gambling. Who acts: Paying. A sentence of the lesson «Loot boxes and the surprise trap» of the everyday course of Mova's primary school with its dependency tree and t
---

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# Loot boxes and the surprise trap, sentence 30

<!-- .ven lang=en -->
Paying money for a random chance at a prize works like gambling, and some countries, such as Belgium, have treated paid loot boxes as gambling.

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**Who acts:** Paying · **What happens:** pay, work, treat · **To what, where:** money, prize, countries

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This is a sentence of the lesson «Loot boxes and the surprise trap» of the everyday course of Mova's primary school. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (Paying), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = school:everyday:413-loot-boxes-and-the-surprise-trap.lesson:30
# text = Paying money for a random chance at a prize works like gambling, and some countries, such as Belgium, have treated paid loot boxes as gambling.
# source = school lesson (ours)
# course = everyday
# lesson = 413-loot-boxes-and-the-surprise-trap.lesson
# annotation = Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): R7-rel-agree ×1
1	Paying	pay	VERB	VBG	VerbForm=Ger	10	csubj	_	_
2	money	money	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obj	_	_
3	for	for	ADP	IN	_	6	case	_	_
4	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	6	det	_	_
5	random	random	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	6	amod	_	_
6	chance	chance	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obl	_	_
7	at	at	ADP	IN	_	9	case	_	_
8	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	9	det	_	_
9	prize	prize	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	1	obl	_	_
10	works	work	VERB	VBZ	Mood=Ind|Number=Sing|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
11	like	like	ADP	IN	_	12	case	_	_
12	gambling	gambling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	10	obl	_	_
13	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	23	punct	_	_
14	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	23	cc	_	_
15	some	some	DET	DT	PronType=Ind	16	det	_	_
16	countries	country	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	nsubj:pass	_	_
17	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	20	punct	_	_
18	such	such	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos|ExtPos=ADP	20	case	_	_
19	as	as	ADP	IN	_	18	fixed	_	_
20	Belgium	Belgium	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	16	nmod	_	Agree=R7-rel-agree|Haiku=16:conj
21	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	16	punct	_	_
22	have	have	AUX	VBP	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=3|Tense=Pres|VerbForm=Fin	23	aux	_	_
23	treated	treat	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	10	conj	_	_
24	paid	pay	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	26	amod	_	_
25	loot	loot	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	26	compound	_	_
26	boxes	box	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	23	obj	_	_
27	as	as	ADP	IN	_	28	case	_	_
28	gambling	gambling	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	23	obl	_	_
29	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	10	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .note -->
No stored speech act for this sentence.

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **pay** | gerund |  | money |  | a prize |  | for a random chance | vn pay-68-1 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Agent money=Asset for chance=Theme |
| 2 | **work** | present | Paying |  |  |  |  | like gambling | vn employment-95.3 «NP V»: agent=Agent |
| 3 | **treat** | present · perfect · passive |  | some countries such Belgium |  |  |  | as gambling | tree rules |
| 4 | **pay** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn pay-68-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Licence: [CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)**, as the whole of Mova corpus 0.4, of which this treebank (the agreed school, `mova-school-agreed-en.conllu`) is part. The lessons were written for Mova's primary school. Sentence `school:everyday:413-loot-boxes-and-the-surprise-trap.lesson:30`.

**The tree:** Mova annot: Rust (en) → Haiku 5.5 (medium, Batches API) patches; gates UD 2.18; agreed by treeagree rules (Stanza, Trankit, spaCy trf): R7-rel-agree ×1. **The frames** are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (`prag`) when this page is built, the lesson read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence.

See the [release 0.4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/releases/0.4/).

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