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Author: Foster, Andrea L.

About 1,000 people a day.

That result surprises even the three Stanford University graduate students who started a site called the Winbutton. For a while, visitors to the site who clicked on the red circle â€" which contains the word "win" â€" stood a slim chance of ' winning money. But the jackpot was usually no more than 10 bucks.

More often than not, clickers were fed a variety of quotes telling them how pathetic they were. Some examples: "At least you still have your looks." "Dude. What can I say. You just suck." "Winning isn't everything … but you are still a loser." "You lose. You must be a Stanford undergrad. Loser."

"To be perfectly honest, I don't know why people click on our site," said Alain T. Laederach, a postdoctoral student in bioinformatics who helps run the site. "I think they're sort of amused by it, by the funny quotes that you get when you lose."

Mr. Laederach's personal favorite: "Dear Loser, welcome to dumpsville. Population: you."

He and his buddies, Bernie J. Daigle and Brian T. Naughton, who also do research in bioinformatics, started the site about seven weeks ago, mostly for fun but also hoping to make money if enough people clicked on the advertisements that popped up each time users pressed the "win" button.

The Web site generated revenue using Google's AdSense program. Winbutton got money from businesses when visitors clicked on their ads. The subjects of the ads were related to words in the "loser" quotes.

Winbutton is still operating, but the jackpot is now empty.

"It was fun while it lasted," says a note on the site. "Our hat goes off to the guys at Google who figured us out pretty quickly."

It seemed that most Winbutton fans weren't interested in the ads anyway, says Mr. Laederach.

The site took in $150 in advertising revenue but paid out the same amount, divided among 15 winners.

"It doesn't seem like our model was perfect," Mr. Laederach acknowledged.

He was not even sure that the site complied with federal law. Christine Hurt, an assistant professor of law at Marquette University, argued on the Conglomerate Blog this month that the students' site may have been an illegal gambling business.

The three students last month opened a related Web site, the Losebutton. Visitors there view a different quote about winners each time they click on a "lose" circle. That site's jackpot, too, is $0.

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By Andrea L. Foster