davmilasav asked us to share the biggest prize we ever won in a lottery. I’ve never actually played in a proper lottery, but I find myself buying raffle tickets fairly often to raise money for my kids’ school or this or that club. Once in a while, to my great surprise, I win. One of the coolest thing was a pack of coupons for ten free lines of bowling at a local alley. Another time I won a huge cake with fresh raspberries on top, so big we were foisting slices on everyone we could think of so it wouldn’t go to waste. It was heavenly, by the way.
What about you? Ever win the grand prize, or something you were especially glad to win?
I was on a four day cruise, and they were holding a raffle as well as a bingo game on the last day. Personally, I think raffles and lotteries are a waste of money but my girlfriend really enjoys them, so I bought five dollars worth of tickets. And we won the grand prize! (of course my girlfried is going with me on the free cruise).
The thing is, I still think lotteries and raffles are a waste of money.
Tickets to Teatro Zin Zanni . It was a great experience, especially since I would never have bought tickets myself (too pricey). Runner up, dinner for two on the Spirit of Washington. Again, not something I’d buy for myself but a very fun evening.
My dad has win several rifles, shotguns, and a Glock handgun in gun raffles. In five years, he probable won about $7000 worth of firearms doing this, and only bought a couple hundred dollars worth of tickets.
A couple of years ago at a Crab Feed held by the chapter of the US Power Sqadron my husband and I belonged to I won a nice travel make up mirror in a raffle. After looking it up, I saw it was a really nice make up mirror, valued at about $100 (for a mirror?? Yep.) I’ve only used it a handful of times. I should pull it out and use it more often. It really is a very nice lighted mirror.
Last year at a wine industry symposium I attend every January, one of the cork vendors from Italy had a big plexiglass box filled with corks. A ‘guess how many are in there’ kinda thing. You wrote your guess on the back of your business card and gave it to one of the reps. I chose the super scientific method of using my birthdate as my guess - 818. I remember the rep looking at the number and saying ‘Oh, wow’ but I didn’t think much of it. A couple of weeks later I got a phone call from a rep saying I’d guessed the closest, the actual amount was 808. They told me I’d won the HUGE basket of Italian specialties they had on display at the convention and they’d like to come by my office and drop it off. I honestly didn’t believe that and figured they’d seen who I worked for on my business card and just wanted an ‘in’ here to try and sell us cork. I expected to have to schmooze with a rep for an hour or so when they came to drop off my prize, but I was (thankfully) wrong. They actually just came by, dropped off this enormous basket filled with awesome goodies, congratulated me, and left. It was filled with some really awesome stuff - olive oils, chocolates, jams, sauces, cookies, all kinds of great items. Probably close to $300 worth of yumminess.
A minifridge. At my high school’s post-grad party, they get tons of donations of all sorts of “you want this for college” type things and raffle them off (ten tickets are included in the price of the party, which is, like, ten bucks or something). It’s served me well, but figuring out how to fit it into my friend’s tiny hatchback car at seven AM after having been awake all night was…interesting.
The grand prize at a perfume convention after store hours: A trip to Panama, plus a giant gift basket full of champagne (along with two glasses!) and chocolate and vacation implements (ie: beach ball, golf shirt, luggage tags, tote bags, etc).
Runner up: combined. I had over a dozen bottles of expensive designer perfumes, plus moisturisers, soaps, powders, makeup bags (that came loaded with free samples of designer crap), and nicknacks associated with perfume or makeup (ie: a silver tray from Calvin Klein).
This is all that’s left of what used to be a magnificent collection of crap. I won it all over two years ago, so it is significantly diminished. Those two red packets of moisturiser (CK Eternity Rose Blush) came in a pack of a dozen and included silver shower gel packets. All the bags in the back except the black one came filled with samples. The Coco Chanel is gone, I had some kind of raspberry scented Givenchy (and a tiny one with roses I used up) that I gave my old roomie along with a bottle of some kind of Calvin Klein (don’t remember what it was, just didn’t smell good on me), I gave away my Truth gift set to my grandmother, and gave my huge bottle of Glow moisturiser to my mother (it stunk on me, but the perfume smelled great) and all the men’s cologne has been given away. The rest was used up. You see those two taller bottles toward the back, the one with the silver top, the other with a coppery-pink top? Those were the only two bottles of perfume I ever bought. Clinque’s Happy and Happy Heart. The rest is all won booty. It’s not nearly as impressive as t used to be.
Do you have to buy a ticket for it to be a raffle, or do things where you fill out an entry form and drop it in a box count?
If so, the coolest thing I ever won was a Yamaha drumset (about a $600 value). They were having a contest at my local drum store back when I was taking lessons. I already had a kit, but I filled out the form just for fun. Next thing I know, they’re calling me and telling me I’ve won!
Funny thing is, I had a fairly expensive kit (too nice for my skills, really) which I subsequently ended up selling. The Yamaha kit (a nice serviceable student-level kit) is set up in my garage right now, just waiting for me to take up drums again.
I won a 6 foot long stuffed Rudolph from a coloring contest and then a raffle through Montgomery Ward. I was the coolest kid in school, I had the biggest stuffed animal ever. It was sweet. I miss it.
My Mom won a three foot tall chocolate Easter bunny. It was over twenty pounds and there were frozen bags of chocolate in the freezer for years.
My friends say I have a horseshoe up my ass. Whenever I’m at an event and buy a bunch of tickets I almost always win a little something. Just happened this last Saturday. Nothing huge, but it happens a lot.
When I was 12 and my brother was 7 we went to our church’s first festival/carnival.
My dad gave each of us $10 to spend and let us go on our own. We found this nifty little game called a “Cake Walk”.
We never understood why our parents looked upset when we caught up to them later carrying 5 cakes with us.
When I was about 14 I won a season’s ski pass. I loved skiing, LOVED it when we went on trips with the school, but the ski hill was about an hour’s drive away, my parents wouldn’t drive me, and no buses went out that way.
So I sold it, but that was still the coolest prize I ever won.
When I was around 12 years old I went to a diet doctor and Weight Watchers. At my first meeting of Weight Watchers they had a “raffle” and I won!
My prize: an old cottage cheese container with a “legume dip” somebody had made and a pamphlet on the health benefits and dietetic quantities of legumes.
