There are these relatively new entities, perhaps you’ve heard of them, they go by the name of “sweepstakes companies.” They’ve actually been around, but as of late, they’ve been leaving a marked imprint on the very up-to-the-minute conversations of the chattering classes. Alright, so all this mildly suspenseful grandstanding — that’s trying to act as a good preface to the info that’s immediately following it — is just for the sake of a last-ditch attempt at writerly stylistic (and creative) license. Does that even still exist? Yes, but that’s another matter.

More to the point, and in actual fact, there’s hardly anything even superficially hush-hush about sweepstakes companies — well, at least about as little as it goes for most things under the heavens. When you hear “sweepstakes companies” what’s actually being discussed is the issue of the internet cafe business.

But, Quick! Going back to a point made earlier, Who are these chattering classes? Well, if the curious reader must know, they’re actually comprised of pretty much everyone you know who likes to communicate, online and in the real world. (Note: That placement of “online” before “the real world” in the last sentence is another example of a stylistic license, just in case any letter-to-eyeballers out there needed some extra explicationary aid.) To continue, that last parenthetical aside, the chattering classes count among their members those individuals highly invested in the sweepstakes internet cafe business, but also in that other internet business of uploading to YouTube a video clip of a cousin’s funny dance moves on YouTube — some times, even with all the money YouTube paid on account of the multimillion views, enough thanks cannot be given for the merciful grace of a usually indifferent universe for having made that relative several times removed from one’s immediate family branch.

But what’s the real deal with the sweepstakes business?

It’s that there’s money to be made, way more than what would come in even with consistent, off-the-charts sales of very expensive coffee. So, with so many profits for the taking, will you, too, be starting an internet cafe any time soon?

Sam Walters is a writer living in Los Angeles. Her writing appears in print and online.