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Thread Number: 34030
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Original Message
"Internet contests and the Winners Of OT."
Posted by Estee on 06-05-09 at 02:07 PM
Just some semi-generic notes after finishing a long month of trying to build up entries for that 10k grocery gift card at MCR.

1. Sometimes, it's just not worth it.

The Pepsi Rock Band contest has officially started: lots and lots of RB tracks being given away, RB kits for the game system of your choice, some semi-interesting sweeps, better odds than anything since MCR's Rhapsody instant win. Just one problem: there are no coded Pepsi bottles in my area. It's a national contest and a non-local giveaway. I haven't seen one of the magic caps yet -- which made the free code Pepsi sent to my Inbox into a special treat. Sure, I can't use any track win for myself, but maybe I can pass it along to someone who'll get some fun out of it.

And then I found the catch.

You can't play the game unless you open a Yahoo account.

Yahoo, which wants my mobile number. Yahoo, which demands to know the name of every friend, family member, pet, and houseplant. Yahoo, whose bug-me-not policy works out to 'We'll send you fifty letters a week to see if you've changed your mind'. Yahoo, the only Internet service potentially more annoying than AOL.

It's just not worth it.

2. This recently appeared on Slick Deals on the MCR Twist-Text-Get game discussion thread:

'Whats with the emails from coke stating that your disqualified after winning at their twist txt game? I won 43 cards but have recieved only 2 of them. I personally no someone who has won and recieved over $2900 since the game began. I have another friend who recieved $1000 worth of Edo cards in the mail in one day. Did they change the rules, I won 43 times from May 11th until the gamed ended on the 31st. What's up with Coke going cheap on me??'

Let's do the math. This person is claiming to have played within the overlap period, when there were two games active and you could enter four times a day between them, with a $25 card given away every five minutes. As such, winning forty-three times in three weeks is not impossible. It's just really, really unlikely. And as such, he was naturally accused of having cheated through playing multiple accounts. Sadly, his exact response was mod-deleted before I could grab it for a paste, so I hope no one minds if I lightly paraphrase (and spellcheck) it as:

'How dare Coke rip me off by not giving me cards I cheated for! Coke is the reason I'm in a wheelchair! That's right: I'm paralyzed from the waist down because I got into a car accident after drinking rum and Coke. If I'd just been drinking straight rum, I wouldn't have drank as much and I'd still be walking today. Coke owes me, and I'm going to collect. Besides, I've got three children: how can you make me tell them 'Daddy doesn't have the right to cheat on an instant win game' when those wins are the only thing putting food on their table?'

...

...right.

3. Truth in advertising.

http://a2.slickdeals.net/attachment.php?attachmentid=216497&d=1244210936

(Courtesy SD's Cynful.)

4. There are a lot of Internet-entry contests out there. A lot. I never realized just how many existed until I started really scanning through SlickDeals survey section. Take a look at this list.

http://forums.slickdeals.net/forumdisplay.php?sduid=516882&f=25

Note the thread count.

Geez. Maybe it's possible to feed your family (which was probably born after your unfortunate rum & Coke accident) through online plays alone. Some of the SD members have racked up multiple high-end wins, but I don't know how much time they spend playing (via the legit channels, naturally). It looks like you could easily spend sixteen hours a day in just legitimately entering contests. And losing. And losing some more. Followed by losing... (You'd have to have a really high tolerance for failure to go through this.)

So here's my questions for OT:

A. Do you enter any online contests for prizes?

B. If so, what have you won?

C. Same as B, but for offline stuff -- lottery, cereal boxes, casinos, and so on.

D. Do you think it's possible to be a professional winner? (No, I'm not considering trying it.)

E. Give me a slogan for Skyway Soap!

Table of contents
Messages in this discussion
"RE: Internet contests and the Winners Of OT."
Posted by byoffer on 06-05-09 at 02:11 PM
I don't play online contests for prizes since most seem to exclude non-Americans.

Here is one that a friend put me onto. It is free, and there is some cash prizes. The trick is to get the longest streak in sports betting. Free betting, so no risk on that. Actually sounds like fun, though I haven't signed up yet.

http://streak.espn.go.com/


"RE: Internet contests and the Winners Of OT."
Posted by Estee on 06-05-09 at 02:22 PM
*groans* Oh gawds, not the Streak... In the first stage of the contest, ESPN started posting articles on potential winners whenever they got close to the 25 straight/brak brak brak number. And whenever one of those articles went up, the person would promptly lose their next pick. It took months to give that prize away, and ESPN's response was to make it harder for a lower payout.

I'm sure it's doable, but for me, that's like flipping a coin twenty-five times and betting you'll get nothing but heads.

"RE: Internet contests and the Winners Of OT."
Posted by bacon on 06-05-09 at 02:11 PM
I once won a bidding contest on some little site called Ebay. Does that count?
"RE: Internet contests and the Winners Of OT."
Posted by Estee on 06-05-09 at 02:36 PM
LAST EDITED ON 06-05-09 AT 03:22 PM (EST)

A. Mostly just the MCR stuff. (I did enter for the Land Of The Lost Amazon gift card after seeing that thread on SD.) I usually go after the gift cards and trips in the sweepstakes. MCR's current instant win game is a four-pack of Six Flags tickets, twenty-five per day: I've been putting a few free entries on that with the aim of giving any win away.

I've tried the current General Mills contest. It's boring.

Beyond that, I don't feel like spending hours every day getting constant failure notices. I can look over the thread list and maybe drop an entry here or there for interesting prizes, but I never expect to actually hit anything.

B. Not much, especially as compared to other people. So far this year, I've got $15 in Rhapsody download money, $100 total through the Twist-Text-Get game (four wins at $25 each, all of which pretty much went to Amazon), and two pairs of show-of-my-choice movie tickets. That's all from Coke: I've never seen so much as a spam letter from anyone else.

C. I seldom play the lottery: only when it gets up to hundreds of millions -- and believe me, if I'd hit on that, I'd be posting from a penthouse. The most I've ever won was an even $100.

I have never pulled anything out of a grocery-based prize, fundraising raffle, Bingo hall (had to go once: don't ask), and what-have-you. I'm lucky if my cereal actually has the prize.

Casino hits -- well, that's a people-watcher issue. I've seen people hit some incredible wins, including $250,000 and $500,000. As for playing myself -- I can lose. I can lose very quickly and very easily without ever matching so much as two symbols in a row on any slot machine you can name, and since I know that, I'm better off not trying to demonstrate it.

Once -- once -- I sat down to play some free promotional dollars at a video poker machine and watched four queens and one joker scroll across the screen. It was a good feeling. Frankly, it was too good a feeling. Spending your life chasing it might be a mistake. (It was a single-joker dollar machine max bet: let's see who has the casino savvy to do the math first.) But that little adventure paid my rent for the winter and freed up money for other things, so no complaints.

Oh, and I won some tickets to an amusement park back in grade school, but I wasn't allowed to use them.

D. I think so, at least as a supplement to your income -- but you'd still need a lot of luck to pull it off without cheating, along with endless hours spend in entry and a world-class capacity for disappointment. Maybe it's possible to even live off nothing but contest winnings: someone must be doing it, because the bell curve always has a far end. I just don't know the secret. And the secret may not even be legal.

E. Skyway Soap: Taking Off On Your Schedule!


"RE: Internet contests and the Winners Of OT."
Posted by VisionQuest on 06-05-09 at 02:39 PM
A. Yes, I have entered online contests (maybe 15 or 20)
B. Nothing
C. When I was in 2nd grade I won $50 on a strip ticket at my church fair. (I thought it was so much money)
D. Only if you are Lazlo.
E. The only way to get clean is Skyway! (I know it's terrible)
"RE: Internet contests and the Winners Of OT."
Posted by cahaya on 06-05-09 at 02:46 PM
A. Do you enter any online contests for prizes?

No. Considering the odds and time investment required, I'd make more money working the same number of hours at WalMart.

B. If so, what have you won?

I look at it the other way. I haven't lost any sleep or time over it.

C. Same as B, but for offline stuff -- lottery, cereal boxes, casinos, and so on.

My first cereal box prize was a toy submarine that actually worked - float, dive, float, dive - using baking soda as 'fuel'.

D. Do you think it's possible to be a professional winner? (No, I'm not considering trying it.)

Yes, I've read about some people who actually do this and make a decent living (or supplemental cash or goods) this way.

E. Give me a slogan for Skyway Soap!

Clean and green, Skyway is my way!

From their site: "...the award winning Greening the Cleaning line of non toxic cleaning chemicals produced by the nonprofit Deirdre Imus Environmental Center for Pediatric Oncology."

"RE: Internet contests and the Winners Of OT."
Posted by IceCat on 06-05-09 at 03:00 PM
LAST EDITED ON 06-05-09 AT 03:04 PM (EST)

A. Do you enter any online contests for prizes? Nope

B. If so, what have you won? N/A

C. Same as B, but for offline stuff -- lottery, cereal boxes, casinos, and so on. Won $50 on a scratch ticket once and $110 on a ball lotto

D. Do you think it's possible to be a professional winner? (No, I'm not considering trying it.) Nope

E. Give me a slogan for Skyway Soap! Skidmarks on yer runway? Try Skyway!

"Speaking of slot machines..."
Posted by Estee on 06-05-09 at 03:09 PM
There's a new Survivor one out. (So far, I've only seen it available in the penny denomination.) The winning mechanism is a little weird: there's fifteen symbol slots -- five reels, three each -- and about twenty-five potential winning lines. If you get a winner on any of those lines, those symbols freeze and the machine starts respinning. If it gets another winning symbol to create a new line or add to the existing one, it spins again. And only when you get no new winners does it actually pay out. Slightly strange to watch.

But here's the semi-fun part. Three former contestants -- only three -- serve as winning symbols in the game. Get five of them in a row and watch an animation of their original opening credits appearance.

Can you guess which three they picked?

Two hints: no one later than Season #7, and no winners.

"RE: Speaking of slot machines..."
Posted by kingfish on 06-05-09 at 04:14 PM
Fairplay, Rupert, Hasselback.

The first two I think may actually be there, the third was just to irritate Dem. View watchers.

Can't do the slot math, but if paid rent for a winter, it must have been about...Aw heck, I don't have clue as to NJ apt rents.

I dropped my name into a local dept. store barrel draw once, and won a $200 gift certificate, promply exchanged for a leather coat which I don't wear because it's too nice.

And once I won $900 at the race track.

"He's not in OT, probably, but.."
Posted by kingfish on 06-05-09 at 04:32 PM
His win is worth mentioning.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090605/ap_on_re_us/us_rags_to_riches_3

I'm glad for him, I'm very jealous, and I hope the sudden deluge of wealth doesn't ruin his life or those that know him. I hope this is the beginning of a wonderful experience for him. And I'm glad someone who was down on his luck won. If it couldn't be me, which it couln't because I didn't buy a ticket, which I think is the smart thing to not do. I think I'm smart, but why don't I feel smart?

Anyway, 2 questions pop up:

1. At $232 he had the choice of an income of about $8M/year before taxes ($5M+ after) from a 30 yr annuity, or about $120M lump before taxes ($88M after tax). Now, while this would great choice to have to make, and either option would be a wonderful thing, wouldn't $8M/yr ($5M+ free spending money a year for 30 yrs) make more sense?

2. What is this guy, if he was in such financial difficulty, doing buying lottery tickets?

Oh well, what can I say, he won.

"RE: Internet contests and the Winners Of OT."
Posted by frodis on 06-05-09 at 04:43 PM
A. Do you enter any online contests for prizes?
Yes, occasionally. I just entered one for a refrigerator.


B. If so, what have you won?
Nothing. Well, actually, I guess I won a Sharpie. You had to play a game to win it. I like Sharpies.


C. Same as B, but for offline stuff -- lottery, cereal boxes, casinos, and so on.
No, not for a long time. I do have a magazine that has monthly contests. I used to send in the cards for those. I won a microfiber mop. Mr. Fro likes it. I don't consider a mop a prize, I consider it an invitation to work. I didn't want to win an invitation to work.


D. Do you think it's possible to be a professional winner? (No, I'm not considering trying it.)
Yes, but it takes a significant investment of time, and you probably need some kind of plow or incinerator to deal with all of the junk mail you'd get from the mailing lists you'd end up on.


E. Give me a slogan for Skyway Soap!
Skyway Soap Will Get You Clean.



Summer fun, Sharnina-style!

"RE: Internet contests and the Winners Of OT."
Posted by qwertypie on 06-07-09 at 11:01 AM
I like Sharpies too, but I have to lock them up here. My son loves to eat Sharpie innards.
"RE: Internet contests and the Winners Of OT."
Posted by frisky on 06-06-09 at 03:59 AM
A. Do you enter any online contests for prizes?

Hell, yes. I am an online contest ho. I am a card-carrying member of ContestCanada, which compiles online contests in one handy spot. Only those contests where Canadians are eligible are posted on the site. I won an iPod a few years ago when membership was free, and when I got sacked last year and had lots of time on my hands, I signed up for the $25 annual membership. I enter the daily, weekly and monthly contests. I'm on the site for an average of 45 minutes a day, entering contests.

B. If so, what have you won?

Since this time last year, I've won:

Oven Mitts and Apron
Hamilton Beach Set n' Forget Slow Cooker
Exercise Ball
Pedometer
Many free music downloads, lost count
3 T-shirts
An energy bar
A bottle of chocolate milk
$100 worth of Supersoakers
$100 worth of Lindt chocolate
Klipsch iGroove SXT iPod Speaker ($200 value)
Moxie's Restaurant gift certificate $200
A bag of Jelly Belly Jellybeans
$15 Starbucks gift certificate
Another iPod mini (won this last week)
An iPod Touch
A cheque for $35 to spend on an evening of bowling (as if LOL)

I think that's it.

C. Same as B, but for offline stuff -- lottery, cereal boxes, casinos, and so on.

I don't enter "snail mail" contests, but I've won lots at bingo and some at the casino. A few years ago, I won the $1K jackpot at the bingo every month of the year except November. And in two of those months, I won the $2K Super Jackpot.

D. Do you think it's possible to be a professional winner? (No, I'm not considering trying it.)

People say I'm lucky, but the law of averages says I'm going to win more stuff than most people, because like I said, I spend about 45 minutes to an hour A DAY entering online contests.

E. Give me a slogan for Skyway Soap!

Who needs soap when you have a sandpapery tongue?


Perpetual *headbutt* compliments of Rolly.

"RE: Internet contests and the Winners Of OT."
Posted by Estee on 06-06-09 at 08:42 AM
So I guess the next two questions are:

1. What does the membership buy you? Access to the list? Some code which processes a few entries for you and increases the number you can enter in an hour?

2. How many contests does that 45-60 minutes typically represent?

Gosh, people are gonna hate you.

"RE: Internet contests and the Winners Of OT."
Posted by frisky on 06-06-09 at 10:09 PM
LAST EDITED ON 06-06-09 AT 10:14 PM (EST)

1. The $25 buys me, potentially, nothing. It's just access to the list. It used to be free, but I think the guy who runs it found he wasn't getting enough out of it. I don't mind paying some dude $25 to find all the contests for me and organize them into one neat list. If he raised the cost, I might balk, but right now, $25 is okay win or lose. Since I've won stuff, it's paid for itself many times over.

I also use a program called Roboform to fill in the forms. The Microsoft form filler sucks the hind teat, and some of the forms have different ways of asking for the same information (ie, "phone number" "home phone" "daytime phone" etc.) With Roboform, I tell it what fields to look for beyond the basic fields, and what to fill in. When I enter contests, there's virtually no typing, except for the CAPTCHA fields.

They also provide the UPC codes that are sometimes needed to enter. The one thing they can't do is provide PIN codes, which you can only get by *gasp* purchasing the product.

2. Right now, I have 60 contests in my "Favourites." Those are the contests I enter every day. Tonight, I'll go in and enter those sixty contests and it'll take about 30-40 minutes. There's also a link to check for new contests that have been listed, and I spend about 10-15 minutes entering those (and adding them to my favourites if they allow daily entries). Sometimes, my favourites goes up to over 100-125 contests. As the contests close, they drop off my favourites list, so it always fluctuates. Right now, at sixty, this this one of the shortest favourites lists I've had.

It's worth the money, but is it worth the time? I think so, but if I had been doing this for a year and hadn't won anything yet, I would probably not continue. They have a forum as well, and people always post about their frustration with the "droughts." Then they suddenly have three wins in a week. Right now, it's worth it, because I have time to do it. It's just one of those surfing activities. Go read the news, go to contestcanada, go to OT, etc. I've won a lot of smallish-mediumish stuff, but I'm really, really hoping that one day I will hit one of those big cash-trips-cars-appliances wins.

Edited after reading Kingfish's post: Most, if not all, of the contests I enter have a opt-in or opt-out button for their junkmail. I always opt out. There are only a few contests that are known for their spam that I stay away from (Wannawin, Reader's Digest). I'll sign up for a newsletter if I really, really want the prize. Every day, I get about 20-30 emails related to contesting, but these are only my "confirmations" for entering the night before. When I win, they usually email to let me know. So, I wouldn't recommend setting up a "yahoo" account to redirect the stuff, because one might be a win notification that you don't want to miss.


Perpetual *headbutt* compliments of Rolly.

"RE: Internet contests and the Winners Of OT."
Posted by kingfish on 06-07-09 at 08:16 AM
Just make sure that contest time doesn't encroach on OT time.

"Skyway Soap?"
Posted by foonermints on 06-06-09 at 06:06 AM
Trying to win a trip to the moon?


Abducted by Capn2patch

"RE: Skyway Soap?"
Posted by Estee on 06-06-09 at 08:45 AM
We finally found a place to send you.

Plus the spacesuit has this really limited body type range...

"RE: Internet contests and the Winners Of OT."
Posted by kingfish on 06-06-09 at 07:32 AM
LAST EDITED ON 06-06-09 AT 07:33 AM (EST)

Ok, up there I got distracted from answering the questions (how rude of me) so here they are:

A. Do you enter any online contests for prizes?

No. I have in the past, and the resulting email barrage stopped that.

B. If so, what have you won?

Nothing. I think. I didn't stay with it long, and I put all the Emailers on the junk mail list so if I did happen to win, I didn't know about it.

C. Same as B, but for offline stuff -- lottery, cereal boxes, casinos, and so on.

The only question I did answer, a $200 gift certificate in a dept store, $900 at race track, and a few wins at the blackjack tables.


D. Do you think it's possible to be a professional winner? (No, I'm not considering trying it.)

Maybe, but given the fact that contests are not there for the benefit of the gamer (witness your colorful tribulations with the Coke contests) and are thus tilted in favor of whoever is paying the bill for the contest, it's probably pretty tough. The pro would have to do enough research to be able to find those contests that would be worth playing, and he/she would have to be able to support him/herself while he/she was on the learning curve. And he/she would have to do this without any assurance that he/she would ever even break even.

It would be a long hard, and possibly futile row to hoe.

E. Give me a slogan for Skyway Soap!


Picture a mixed sex Nascar pit-crew taking a shower, individual stalls, shoulders and up view, lots of steam and spray for PG.

Clean your pits the right way, with Skyway Soap!

Alt:

Coal mine, with coal-blackened miners, first in the mine, then cut (at "cut") to the shower

Nothing could be finer, for a real dirty miner, ("cut") than a shower with Skyway soap!"

Or

Nothin says scrubbin, and cleaning to the nubbin, like Skyway Soap.

"RE: Internet contests and the Winners Of OT."
Posted by Estee on 06-06-09 at 09:23 AM
(witness your colorful tribulations with the Coke contests)

I generally don't expect to win those, though. When there's a prize given away every minute (as with the Rhapsody dollars), it's just a matter of patience. But with the various sweepstakes, the absolute best I can do is put myself on the same weak footing as everyone else -- at least, everyone playing on a single account and willing to put every monthly entry into a single draw. I pretty much maxed out my tickets for the $10,000 grocery gift card (three winners), but I play alone: a family of six dedicated to racking up entries has sextuple my odds. And there are potentially millions of players, hundreds of millions of tickets...

I play because it's free. No results anticipated beyond a wasting of time.

"RE: Internet contests and the Winners Of OT."
Posted by kingfish on 06-06-09 at 10:40 AM
"I play because it's free. No results anticipated beyond a wasting of time."

The entertainment of OT is a happy unintended by-product, then. For which I, for one, am grateful.

♪
♪ Nothing could be finer, for a real dirty miner, than a shower with Skyway soap!♫"
♫

(Sorry, just a catchy jingle I heard somewhere. Can't get it out of my head.)