Call it a bragging thread, if you like. Talk about the things you’ve won in your life. It can be any type of contest. A lottery, Jeopardy (I know we’ve got more than one of those here), a radio contest, a tournament, a big screen television, a trip to Maui, a free Dope membership…whatever. Tell us what you’ve had the luck (or intelligence or physical skill) to win in your life.
Two KCBQ Streak Team T-shirts when I was about 10 years old. The Moody Blues Days of Future Past album from KCBQ. A ski package to Lake Tahoe (where I destroyed my right knee). Small amounts of money in Reno and Las Vegas. A $25 gas card at a company Christmas party. ‘Scariest Costume’ at another workplace’s Halloween party.
On a tangent: I like the dialog from the old computer game Blood where your character says, ‘I won! I won, I won, I WON!’ at a carnival.
My dad went to the Flamingo Hilton in Laughlin, NV, went to a café, and pulled out the Keno brochure. It said, ‘How to win $100,000 playing Keno’. So he followed the instructions on his first game, and won $100,000. He didn’t gamble the rest of the trip.
That’s an awesome story!
I have won concert tickets to the Foo Fighters, several pairs of movie tickets, a $100 Circle K (convenience store) gift card, a $250 gift card to Victoria’s Secret, a $50 gift card to Academy Outdoor and Sports, several $25 Visa cards, several hundred dollars from local casinos several times, the entire product line of Softlips stuff, a skin brightening system (lotions and such to remove brown spots) and a few other small things like stuffed animals, various $5-20 gift cards, music downloads, etc.
Two weeks ago I e-mailed in the local sports station in light of the controversy around Ilya Kovalchuk. They ran an online poll, “Besides DiPietro, what the is the worst long-term contract in the NHL today?”
I complained that Alexei Yashin’s contract was worse than any of the options they had there, even DiP, and that Mike Milbury is a clown. They said they wanted “current” contracts, upon which I replied with proof that he was still getting paid by the Isles. Well, I guess they ate crow, 'cause they gave me a fishing rod and a hat.
Two days ago I won a pair of Oakley polarized sunglasses for shooting the highest score in my unit on the M4A1 carbine. My wife likes the glasses, so all is good!
I was putting gas in the car one day in Sea-Tac (or what would have been Sea-Tac had it existed then) when a man walked up to me with a watermelon under each arm. He asked me to pick a number between one and ten, and when I gave him an answer off the top of my head he exclaimed “Hey! We have another winner!” and shoved a watermelon at me. He then walked off before I could tell him I hate watermelon.
I suppose you could also say I “won” my first cat by being in the right place at the right time — namely, the cat food aisle of the Buttrey’s in Helena, Montana. Actually, I was just passing through on the way to the back of the store when I noticed this tiny ball of fur sitting on the shelf, looking wistfully at the packages. I took her up to the customer service desk, and they said they would put her outside; but when I went back through the same aisle, she was sitting in the middle of the floor. At that point I figured someone was trying to tell me something, so I took her home. The next day the adoption was confirmed when I woke to find a pair of blue eyes (she had quite a bit of Siamese in her ancestry) staring quizzically at me from about a centimeter away.
Pool tournaments, chess tournaments, video game tournaments, baseball tournaments, martial arts tournaments, volleyball tournaments, speech contests, poker tournaments, etc. Some were 2nd place finishes, I forget. You stop caring after a while, especially for stuff sponsored by the school.
Probably the one I’m proudest of was winning the inaugural speaking contest in middle school. The teacher who sponsored the contest was my favorite teacher and she and her husband took me out for ice cream once. The trophy in the office still has my name on it.
The most I won was $600 for first place in the pokerstars $11/180 turbo.
I won a bottle of Johnny Walker Red in the New Year’s raffle at the old One Way Bar on Sukhumwit 25 years ago. No special luck was required – the poor One Way Bar had very few customers and soon went out of business. I wasn’t a Johnny fan, and asked a co-worker if he liked Johnny Red. He shook his head and said Black. The Red didn’t go completely to waste; I came home one afternoon to find my live-in language teacher and her friends particularly mirthful.
I won the 1000-baht prize in the Thai lottery for any ticket with a number xxxx13. When I sold it to a dealer for 950 baht, I had a little fun, since the full number on the ticket I had was 131313. I covered up the last 4 digits, and tried to sell the ticket. He shook his head, probably afraid he’d have to explain the rules to a foreigner with poor language comprehension. I revealed another ‘13’; but by now, he probably guessed the punchline.
Such a pretty number for just 950 baht. Maybe I should have asked for a bit more…
I’ve won $1000 a few times at Blackjack, but doubt that counts since I had to wager $1000 to get it. By the time my bets got that big, my heart was beating very fast! I’d have to take prednisone (or some such medication) if I tried this today. (I became a multi-millionaire after play in one casino. 
But in a currency whose unit value was much less than an American cent. 
I was already in the airport departure lounge before I finally understood it was non-convertible currency, ran around the tiny departure-lounge shopping area buying things. :smack: )
I won a trip for two to New Orleans back in 2003 or so. It was from work. We were doing some sort of Monte Carlo themed pep rally for the employees, and they’d pull you down out of the audience to spin a prize wheel for various reasons. I believe I had yelled out ‘Apathy!’ in response to some question like 'Name something keeping us from serving our customers better…"
I was more interested in taking vacation time to fly home and visit my family, so I asked if they’d work with the travel agency and just apply the money to tickets from Atlanta to San Francisco, and they agreed. As much as I was glad that I got to visit my family, I still have not been to New Orleans to this day, and I kinda wish I had had a chance to see it before Katrina, but I do still plan on going someday.
When I was 8 years-old, my grandmother and my mom and I took a train trip from LA to Vegas (Amtrak still had that service back then). There was some sort of trivia contest on the train, and I ended up winning a steak dinner.
When I was 15, I won a tennis bracelet for my mom in a radio contest where I had to submit an essay about why my mom deserved something special for Mother’s Day.
I also won tickets to a Raiders game in a radio contest once – I think I just had to be the right caller, or something.
I’ve won a variety of bowling trophies from league play over the years. And just yesterday, the inspiration for this thread: a friend and I were doubles partners in the beginner’s division of a tennis tournament, and we won! We’re both very jazzed, and I have a new trophy to display. 
I don’t think I’ve personally won more than $10 on a lottery ticket, and the most I’ve won gambling was about $250 on a video poker machine. I did win $100 playing Bingo in Vegas last year, though.
I have won a long and healthy life or the Jabez Blessing if you will.
Respectfully, nobody can top this.
A six-foot tall electric blue bunny.
Our kids were small then, so Big Blue Bunny would come out each Easter ever since.
My youngest is now taller than BBB.
I’ve never really won anything, I tell myself I am saving up karma to win something BIG (like the lottery!)
Won a DVD player from a radio contest back when they were new-ish and not everyone had one.
More recently I got hooked on online sweepstakes & instant win games. Yes I know the odds are horrendous and it’s a complete waste of time. I actually won a very nice wallet from a luxury accessories place. Probably the nicest one I will every own since I’d have to have a lot of money before I’d ever consider spending $125 on a wallet of all things.
I recently attended a conference and in spite of google maps, had a terrible time finding the route thru the backroads in the dark.
At the conference, I won a GPS unit as a door prize. Could have used it before, haven’t used it since.
A cake in a cake walk when I was 6 years old.
About 5 years ago, I won a raffle prize of a week at a time share in the Caribbean. However, I couldn’t afford the cost of getting there and back plus the time off work. So, I gave the trip to someone else in the organization.
I won the “Last Man on Earth” contest put on by Bob Wilkins, legendary host of the Creature Features TV show here in the Bay Area. To go along with the showing of the 1964 Vincent Price classic (?), Bob asked viewers to send in their ideas for the “best” last person on earth.
My entry wasWillard Biscuit–a character from a satire magazine called Grump (edited by Roger Price of Mad Libs fame). According the magazine, he was the “last remaining Out person in the US”. I can’t imagine that anyone submitted a more obscure idea, but it obviously piqued Wilkins’ interest. The funny thing about winning the contest was that I got 4 free movie tickets for just entering, but only 2 tickets when I won. I suppose the bragging rights (such as they are) are worth more than the actual prize.
I won a bag of candy in a snail race back in elementary school…but the actual credit should probably go to the snail itself. 
Three years ago I attended a conference where I won an iPod Nano in a random draw. This is the first time I’ll be going back to it, and the prize this year is an iPad. I swear, if I win this year, I’m asking my boss to let me be the offical company rep.
Oh, I won a pair of Kneissl skis in a raffle when I was in high school.
This winter, the Olympic torch run ran through our city (Winnipeg). In fact, since we live at the east end of the city we weren’t that far away from where the torch was officially entering the city, so we went there to watch that. (Got a picture of the kids holding the torch before it was lit with the incoming one).
After that, we went to a nearby McDonald’s for a quick dinner on the go, and were treated to the first torch handoff in the city right outside the restaurant! (I guess I shouldn’t be surprised as McDonald’s is an official sponsor and all). At McDonald’s, the kids were real pleased to see that “Ronald McDonald” himself was there greeting people and handing out Olympic cheering paraphernalia to cheer on the runners. “Ronald” also announced he had a big prize to give away to anyone who could answer a trivia question about the Olympics. Of course, my ears perked up, and I listened to the spokesclown:
“This is a two part question: In 1948, the Royal Canadian Air Force put together a team to compete in the winter Olympics in St. Moritz that year. What sport did they compete in?”
Nearly the entire restaurant got the answer “hockey” right.
Then he gave the rest of it. “What was the name of the team?”
[spoiler]Someone answered “Falcons”, as that’s a famous Winnipeg ice hockey team that won the first Olympic gold in hockey in 1920. “Ronald” said he was wrong, “but it does begin with ‘F’!”
The restaurant was silent. Meanwhile I was thinking: “A team of airmen that begin with ‘F’? Couldn’t be that easy, could it?”
I answered “Flyers?”[/spoiler]
It was that easy. I got an iPod shuffle from Ronald McDonald himself. My kids were proud of me, my wife was real proud of me (as I already have an iPod touch, I gave her the shuffle), and I was pleased at my trivia solving abilities to suss out the correct answer while not actually knowing the answer.
I ate my Quarter Pounder with a smug smile the whole time and since my wife, who never thought she’d really want an iPod, has gotten much use out of hers (according to iTunes, her songs have been played much more frequently than mine … )