Car competitions anyone won?

mid_gen said:
Your chances of winning something significant are vastly better on these raffles versus the lottery.
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But it's much more binary. It's all or nothing right?
You win the car or you win nothing? That's what I recall seeing when I had a look a long time ago.

I know these things are mainly targets for the "I'll never have it otherwise" and obviously the house always wins.

They seem very popular as they are all over the place. Especially social media.
 
413x said:
But it's much more binary. It's all or nothing right?
You win the car or you win nothing? That's what I recall seeing when I had a look a long time ago.

I know these things are mainly targets for the "I'll never have it otherwise" and obviously the house always wins.

They seem very popular as they are all over the place. Especially social media.
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Who gives a **** about winning £10? I'd rather win something of value. I don't really want or need any more stuff so would just immediately sell anything I won and use the money on important things like holidays and extended sabbaticals :P
 
lordrobs said:
I didn't say there was an issue with it and as you say, it is pretty much business 101 - buy product, ensure you get more for the product that you paid for it.

Some (maybe all, I haven't checked) are also incredibly open about the details of the draw with every ticket listed out to view after the event so you can even calculate how much they made (gross) on that particular prize.

The point I was making is that you are funding the lavish lifestyle of some dude behind a flashy website and the vast majority of people will get Jack in return.

EDIT - lets also be clear on the numbers, these guys aren't getting out of bed for £5k profit on a £20k prize. I just looked up the entry list on a £2500 cash prize, the ticket income was pennies short of £4k. £25k cash prize = £36k of tickets. I'd expect the gross margins on the cars to be higher due to the additional costs involved with an actual prize rather than a bank transfer.

EDIT 2 - I've taken a small sample size but about 60% gross seems to be the margin on the cars (third edit because I can't do maths :o ).
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They dont profit on every comp. Their marketing costs are massive. I had a good chat with the guys when they delivered the Mrs G wagon. Yeah sure they are doing well for sure but its not as simple as buy for x raffle for xx = Profit... I think Elite comps now have over 20 staff, Multiple units to house all the prizes not to mention their Google/Facebook advertising costs.

One of the house comps they did a while back was for a house that the boss had built 2 of.. Build 2 sell one raffle the other...

I sound like I work for them now, But dont confuse these guys with Keith who bough a Rolex and is trying to raffle it off to his facebook "mates".
 
mattyg said:
They dont profit on every comp. Their marketing costs are massive.
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Yes, I know someone that started one of these sites, late to the game and ultimately not earning enough to get out of bed for in the end.

The big players will be sitting comfier now that they’ve got plenty of organic traction but it’s not as easy or as profitable as some make out, especially in the first few years. It’s like any business.

Regarding the ‘gambling’ element, not for me but then I’ve never done the lottery either. Just don’t like giving cash for a slim prospect I’ll get anything in return.

Fair play to those who win though.
 
413x said:
But it's much more binary. It's all or nothing right?
You win the car or you win nothing? That's what I recall seeing when I had a look a long time ago.
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Compare, as an example, the RS4 that happens to be on the front page of Dream Car Giveaways when I started writing this post:

Max Tickets 249,999 - so if you buy one 39p entry, your odds are 1 in 249,999. If you spent £2 (the price of one Lotto ticket), then you can get 5 tickets and make your odds more like 1 in 50,000 for a prize worth £50,000 give or take.

Lotto, a single £2 ticket, leaves you with a 1 in 144,414 chance of winning about £1,750 or a 1 in 2,179 chance of winning £140.

Whilst it's 'all or nothing', you've got better odds of winning the 'all' than you have of winning even a couple of grand playing the lottery. (I expect some of the other lottery games vary but doubt they change the overall point significantly)
 
Kenai said:
Compare, as an example, the RS4 that happens to be on the front page of Dream Car Giveaways when I started writing this post:

Max Tickets 249,999 - so if you buy one 39p entry, your odds are 1 in 249,999. If you spent £2 (the price of one Lotto ticket), then you can get 5 tickets and make your odds more like 1 in 50,000 for a prize worth £50,000 give or take.

Lotto, a single £2 ticket, leaves you with a 1 in 144,414 chance of winning about £1,750 or a 1 in 2,179 chance of winning £140.

Whilst it's 'all or nothing', you've got better odds of winning the 'all' than you have of winning even a couple of grand playing the lottery. (I expect some of the other lottery games vary but doubt they change the overall point significantly)
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Yeah I'm aware the chance of winning the car are higher. But I'm guessing if you played both 1000 times you'll be much better off with the lottery.

But yeah appreciate it's the chance to win big
 
mattyg said:
They dont profit on every comp. Their marketing costs are massive. I had a good chat with the guys when they delivered the Mrs G wagon. Yeah sure they are doing well for sure but its not as simple as buy for x raffle for xx = Profit... I think Elite comps now have over 20 staff, Multiple units to house all the prizes not to mention their Google/Facebook advertising costs.

One of the house comps they did a while back was for a house that the boss had built 2 of.. Build 2 sell one raffle the other...

I sound like I work for them now, But dont confuse these guys with Keith who bough a Rolex and is trying to raffle it off to his facebook "mates".
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Likewise I sound like I'm down on these competitions like they are some kind of scam which they mostly aren't. When I met the chap up the road who runs one of the bigger sites he seemed like a genuinely nice guy, his site is totally transparent regarding the draws and as people say the chance of winning something big is better than the likes of the National Lottery. Its also quite interesting as many of the cars are initially delivered to his house so I get a heads up on what's coming up for grabs :D

The reason I keep mentioning gross margins is because as the punter that is what matters as it dictates your odds. I'm sure net profit is much smaller.

I'm quite analytical, extremely tight with money but I do still have that "what if..." gamblers dream mentality to some degree. It's why I've got cash sitting in Premium Bonds when I know it would be doing better for me if it was invested.
 
Didnt win a car , but won a LED TV which was a cheap entry i'd purchased alongside a few other tickets for Cars and Motorbikes with the same company.

TV broke in the first week after delivery and getting it replaced was an absolute utter nightmare, (think it was semi bricked by a firmware upgrade the day it was turned on), was directed to the retailer the competition company had purchased it from and they utterley peed us about for a month. Appealing to the competition company fell on deaf ears.

Even more frustrating i'd sold it pretty much half price to a good friend just prior to Xmas, so although they were very understanding, was still incredibly frustrating. ( The retailer didnt know this, I dealt with the warranty etc directly from my address ) .

No idea what the legal position is on these things when they go faulty, dont intend to find out in future.

Never again.
 
Sounds dodgy as surely they are liable to sell you something in acceptable condition unless they state otherwise.

Imagine getting a Porsche or Mclaren for it to go pop the next day!
 
bingham67 said:
Sounds dodgy as surely they are liable to sell you something in acceptable condition unless they state otherwise.

Imagine getting a Porsche or Mclaren for it to go pop the next day!
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They sold you the ticket which worked perfectly well, they gifted you the prize. This is how I imagine it would be viewed if you tried to go after them for faulty stuff
 
Friend of mine runs a reasonably popular comp website, large enough now that it doesn't require any form of paid marketing.

Turnover around £1.2m/year
Outgoings are around £450k/year

I also support hosting for one site turning over £14k/week, one-man band but spending about £10k/week on Facebook/Instagram/TikTok to get off the ground.

I think the beauty of the competition sites popping up all over is that you can enter a competition for something you actually want with much better odds than something like the lottery.
It certainly does need more regulation though.
 
The problem is for every statistical anomaly that wins something there are a hundred people chasing losses spending money they can't afford and coming out with zip.

On the one hand that isn't the fault of the competition sites on the other, it is quite sad really. Ultimately it is gambling and gambling has the very real potential of ruining peoples lives.
 
It is my understanding that in GB, these lotteries have no actual requirement to have a free mode of entry. For example there is no free mode of entry into the postcode lottery.

The reason for the free mode of entry, is so that they can be advertised nationwide and not exclude Northern Ireland, which has different lottery regulation, including requiring a free mode of entry. Otherwise it would mean that every TV program that does these things (and there are loads) would have to said "you can't enter if you live in N.I.".

You'll note that the postcode lottery does have such a T&C in small writing at the bottom of the screen in it's TV ads.

The national lottery, which by the by, is the biggest gambling outfit in the UK and has separate rules because it is the government one, is unique in both having no free mode of entry AND also available in N.I.

Lotteries are making this free mode of entry less viable these days. The latest one I've seen is pay £10 for 100 entries, or you can do it by post for 1 entry, so you automatically have a x100 less chance of winning. Also the price of a 2nd class stamp is increasingly making postal entries a thing of the past.

I have often wondered whether any such lottery has EVER been won by a post-in entry, or indeed are these actually entered at all or just thrown away.
 
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