It ’s a around the bend good afternoon and you ’ve decided to take a leisurely stroll in the park . You presently come in across a preferred characteristic : a declamatory fountain with a statue at its center , gracefully spouting water in all charge to the shallow pool underneath . Feeling lucky , and perhaps a piece wistful , you angle acoinfrom your air hole , make a wish and toss it into the fountain . Then you mark all the other coins littering the bottom of the natural spring . What happens , you enquire , to all that money ?
lease ’s head toLas Vegas , a urban center that lock on a palpable current of luck . Pair this with a high per - capita rate of outflow , and coin - filled pools are inevitable . Some of the coins in Vegas are grabbed by masses uncoerced to wade into the water . Others are sucked into filtration system and terminate up in the trash . Most , however , are collected and donated to charities . The Bellagio , for representative , donate about $ 12,000 a year in fountain coins to brotherly love . And that ’s just one hotel along the Vegas strip – add all the other hotel , and the haul from fountain coin is likely to reach six digits a yr [ reference : Padgett ] .
But not all outpouring possessor donate their coins – some use the money to defray the expense of alimony . Take the Park Fountain in New York City ’s Bryant Park : Every three month , parking lot workers gather the fountain ’s coins and turn the findings over to the Bryant Park Corp. , a nonprofit that runs the green space . Although the tally is sometimes more than $ 3,000 , it barely covers the cost of cleaning the fountain [ source : Runyeon ] .
The practice of tossing coins into fountain belike began in ancient clip , when people call up spirits inhabit inside them . If a person passed by a fountain , well or other water reference without tossing in a coin , he or she would sure be followed by a bad luck . The tradition evolved into a more personalized act , and hoi polloi began making wishes as they tossed coins into fountains and wells . Some coins are throw into fountains in the hope the coin - bearer will be able to refund to the spring in the hereafter . Whatever the reasonableness , bewilder a coin into a fountain is a pattern seen all over the humankind .
