The gift needs to be able to come off as a genuine gift so there’s some plausible deniability…
Edit: Just so it’s clear, this is purely hypothetical. I just thought of the idea and thought it would be funny to see what a random person on Lemmy might think. This isn’t a serious request and none of the suggestions will ever actually be used.
One trick I heard is to get them a gift card towards a Las Vegas vacation. If they go to Vegas they are way more likely to lose money than win at the tables.
That doesn’t sound insulting, it just sounds like you’re giving them negative money.
True, but I think it’s in the spirit of the question.
Someone once told me that in certain circles it’s considered rude to give a book as a gift, because it implies that the person is ignorant. May have been a joke.