I always get a chuckle when I see these things and read the line "... it's not illegal."

There's absolutely nothing legal about it, and I speak from experience and knowledge of the legalities I gained as former head of marketing for one of the largest lottery corporations in world. It's a simple pyramid scheme where money is brought in as a result of signing people up (with no transaction or provision of legitimate goods or services) and is used to pay people who previously signed up. Eventually it crumbles.

In this case, there is no "legitimate" service being provided, merely a bogus attempt at a smokescreen. Federal regulators and enforcement agencies aren't that dumb when it comes to prosecuting these. Of course an email scam like this is difficult, if not impossible, to prosecute, but there are many multi-level marketing companies that cross this line (many are completely legitimate) and get shut down on an ongoing basis.

That's my .02