Leaves of cash

If you're like most kids who grew up in America, chances are you've heard your parents evoke the classic cliché, "Money doesn't grow on trees, you know."

Well, it's about time someone proved all those naysayers wrong.

Thanks to the wonderful folks behind Treeloot.com, it is now an undeniable fact that money can indeed be found on trees. Or one tree, at least - the virtual tree you'll find once you enter the site (www.treeloot.com).

Treeloot is run by a company called Sharper Services, Inc., which uses the site as a way of promoting its other on-line business ventures. Basically, it's a game, with a potentially lucrative result for the unwavering player.

The rules are simple. What you see on the screen is a picture of a tree, with leaves made of currency and bags of treasure on the ground. You move your cursor over the image and click on any spot you want. Hidden in different areas within the image are cash prizes; click on the prize and it's yours. You can win $20, $100, $250 or even $1000, with just one push of your mouse button.

You don't have to pay to play, you don't have to register with anyone, and you can click as many times as you want. So, what's the catch? Well, the thing is, the prizes are each hidden under a single pixel in the picture. Considering that your standard screen resolution in 640 X 480 pixels, you can imagine that there's a lot of area to cover. In fact, as the site creators are nice enough to point out, "There are approximately 170,000 unique areas in which the cash prizes can be found."

People do win, though. You can access a list of all the winners for any given month through the site - there have already been 23 this month. You can also sign up for chat and gab with other players about Treeloot-related issues.

After every hundred clicks, you're awarded with a bonus round. Another tree appears, but this one is really tiny - you get three chances to click on the main tree's bonsai kin to win a prize. There are also some friendly monkeys who pop up after you click each time to give you hints about which way to go and to spur you on.

If someone has already won a particular prize on a given day, that prize cannot be won again, but the locations of the prizes are changed every day at 12 a.m., EST, at which time they're all up for grabs once more.

It's just important to remember that the most important thing to have when playing Treeloot is a lot of time on your hands. It's easy to let hours go by while you click yourself into a zombified state, which is all well and good if you come away with a cool grand. But what you're more likely to come away with is the knowledge that even though money can now be found on trees, you're likely to drive yourself crazy trying to get it.