I'm sure you're only partly joking, but sadly it does seem to be one of the biggest first uses. Oh and lotteries - those are popular.

On the other hand, people will continue to run ponzi schemes as long as there are greedy/ignorant people to attract, so it might as well be done all visibly. At least then the guy running the ponzi can't just tell everyone "sorry, feds raided the bank, all the money is gone" when he actually just moved it offshore.