I am obsessed with entering competitions, and I’ve won quite a few by now (I got free tickets to the same music festival seven years in a row due to my dedication). I love hearing stories of what others win and how they use their winnings.
About twenty iPods.
Walkers, a snack company, was running a contest where you could enter a draw every ten minutes, 24 hours a day, to win an iPod. They also had a website where you could get an entry code without buying anything. I was one of the few people to have unlimited texts and a phone controllable by Bluetooth at the time, so I ran a script to just spam the free entry codes. Somehow they never cottoned on.
I was a volunteer working at the first LinuxCon in 2009, I worked in the expo hall and at the end of the first day one of the booths had a raffle to win an android G1 developer phone and I ended up winning.
The best part was, by winning the phone instead of having to buy it through t–mobile I was able to keep my service without having to pay for adding data and it was a couple years before I had to actually start paying for data.
I was a volunteer working at the first LinuxCon in 2009
That would have been awesome!
I won some stuff in a church raffle when I was a teenager. Nothing remarkable - i think a suitcase.
I also won some sex toys from a charity raffle for repro rights, but some past partner took them. Not sure who, but I don’t have them anymore.
Thinking about it for the first time now, it is funny how those are two very different contexts.
When I was a kid my parents won some kind of sweepstakes or drawing. Well it was like third or fourth prize, but it was a huge box (a cube almost as tall as my legs are now) that was just filled with cereals.
A Kellogg’s contest, I believe. Can’t remember for sure.
I didn’t think anyone actually won Instagram contests, but my spouse won a magnum of locally roasted coffee which is lovely, and a free Valentine’s dinner at a very nice restaurant in Buffalo. I won a board game called Scruples for answering some ethics question in a column in the newspaper the Globe and Mail. Many years ago before it became what it is now.
I worked at Starbucks 25 years ago, when it was actually not a bad job and had some nice perks and was actually pretty good to work for. There was a game called Cranium that was sold through Starbucks then, and there was a contest for staff for a draw to win a VW bug with Cranium decals on it, and amazingly my coworker one, the decals could be removed. It was actually pretty nice.
I got Drake’s leather diary from the uncharted games through a subway sweepstake.
I already won the lottery. Born in the US of A baby!
RemindMe! 4 years
I’ve Been Involved In A Number Of Cults, Both As A Leader And A Follower. You Have More Fun As A Follower. But You Make More Money As A Leader.
His name? Creed Bratton.
When I was a kid we won second in a general mills national contest for “a treasure chest of games.” They sent us a cardboard board with plastic pieces and like 4 games on it. Someone sued based on the commercial, and we got some cereal coupons.
Many years later, I won like 3rd in a Mountain Dew cap contest. They actually sent me the snow board - no binding or anything, but Mountain Dew has integrity.
I won Blockbusters Donkey Kong tournament for the SNES when I was 6. Got a champions card that gave me one free video game rental every other week for a year. I won at two stores and my brother won in 3 stores in his age bracket. So we constantly had free new games to play. That was the best year ever.
Maybe fun fact: Dr. Disrepect’s “Two Time Champion” claim is from these blockbuster tournaments.
When the internet was still young I entered an online drawing to win a vacation on a travel website. I never really thought much of it. One day I decided to answer the phone even though we got lots of telemarketers. The woman was from the travel company and said I’d won a rafting trip in CO and that this had been their third and final attempt to reach me. It was totally legit, they paid for the flight, rafting trip and rental car. Due to low river levels the trip was moved to the San Juan river in UT though. It was an awesome trip. We even paid some extra to keep the rental car longer to add some extra sightseeing days to the trip.
I won The Game.
I believe you all lost.
You can’t possibly win the game
I’ve personally never won anything. I’ve entered maybe 1 or 2 of those contests yt people I watch/used to watch did where you go to the link and click on all the social media junk in hopes of winning a console, but never did win anything.
But a real long time ago my brother did win some contest. I think it was a radio contest but I don’t remember nor care much about it. Won some free martial arts lessons (probably just karate but I don’t remember). I think it was maybe 1-2 of them or something else as a promotion progresses something. I don’t fully remember because this was well over a decade ago.
Around 1981 or 82, I was about 12 years old and the local college radio station had a call-in for identifying snips of popular songs at the time. Best I can recall, it was Girls by Dwight Twilly, Let the Music Play by Shannon, and I think there were 3 others but I can’t remember what they were. The prize was a discount coupon to the local pizza place.
I went in on an office lottery thing, we won 20k, ended up being about 500 ea. In takehome But still nice, it was mostly about the thrill of winning more than the winnings themselves, it was my first time buying in. I also won a 400 dollar smart watch at a work raffle.
Back in the mid 90’s, I won a “Rocko’s Modern Life,” t-shirt from a Nickelodeon contest. It was one where you’d have to call a phone # when his face would pop up in the bottom corner or something like that for like 10 seconds. Caller # whatever, could win the grand prize or whatever but I got a tee. Wore that shirt with pride all the fucking time.