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.

  • @[email protected]
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    143 months ago

    I somehow managed to get through to a radio show that was having a giveaway, and answered their question correctly. I won tickets to a concert, and a load of their sponsor’s merch. I was still young, but even then I knew my luck was shit, so I was really excited even though I didn’t like the band I was going to see lol

    Didn’t matter.

    The tickets arrived the day after the concert had happened, and the merch was all either factory seconds or used (so all slightly damaged in some way - a stain, an undone seam, a broken clasp). I tried calling to let them know, but all they did was send another load of damaged merch.

    Off the top of my head, that’s the one and only thing I’ve ever won.

    I really do have shit luck lol

  • nocturne
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    163 months ago

    I won a geolocation game from Rita’s and got a year of free Italian Ices. Every day during March they gave out a geolocation and you had a certain amount of time to find them to win. The first few days i missed the time limit. A couple times i was second. After a week or so i noticed a general pattern and started closer to the part of town i thought they would be. The day i won i was in the parking lot of the stadium where they were and watched them setting up. as soon as they sent out the geolocation i walked up and claimed my prize.

    • LennyOP
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      93 months ago

      How did the prize work? Could you just waltz up and get free ices whenever you wanted?

        • LennyOP
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          53 months ago

          That sounds delicious and also dangerous.

          • nocturne
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            3 months ago

            We are a family of 6, and I gave some away to friends and some unhoused people. My van leaked and the last 100 or so got wet and fused into a single coupon. I took it into the store and they took them all and gave me two 5 gallon buckets.

            Edit: it was two 2.5 gallon buckets, for a total of 5 gallons of ice.

  • @[email protected]
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    113 months ago

    Radio question. Sibling knew the answer, but didn’t want to call. Mother was driving. So I called. Have the answer. It was correct and I was the first. We won tickets to some young kids show and gave them to a family friend.

    I also won a Weird Al lookalike contest. Despite being female. I was one of three people there and the only one trying. Which meant Hawaiian shirt, my old huge glasses, and permed my hair. Got front row tickets for that, which is all I wanted so my very short sibling could see the concert. Also got to meet him though, that was nice.

  • tymon
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    3 months ago

    Almost 20 years ago I won an iPod Nano and a Fubu shirt at a raffle at a black church in Norfolk VA when I was 17. I was the only white kid in there.

    To say the bus ride back was uncomfortable is an understatement

      • tymon
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        33 months ago

        One other kid won a BluRay of that Will Smith movie Hitch. He wasn’t happy.

  • @[email protected]
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    93 months ago

    On my 18th birthday I bought 2 scratch lottery tickets, and doubled my money (20EUR spend, 40EUR return). Never played since. I beat the system 😎

  • @[email protected]
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    83 months ago

    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.

  • Metostopholes
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    83 months ago

    When I was a kid, maybe 13 years old, I heard about a Halloween costume contest at a natural history museum.

    I wanted a costume somehow science related, so I decided to dress as a mosquito (seems weird to me now, but whatever). My mom sewed together a black felty fabric into a proboscis that went out over my head and a sort of cloak down my back with legs coming off it. We cut a Styrofoam ball in half and painted it yellow for the eyes. The wings were a white mesh fabric on a frame of drinking straws that we taped together.

    I won the contest for my age bracket, and the prize was some Star Trek: Deep Space 9 refrigerator magnets. I don’t think I have the magnets anymore, but I still have the costume, though it’s falling apart a little.

    Okay, I have to go text my mom and tell her she’s awesome.

    • LennyOP
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      43 months ago

      +1 your mom is cool. You’d better call her!

  • 𝕮𝕬𝕭𝕭𝕬𝕲𝕰
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    13 months ago

    My phone service provider used to do daily roulette type giveaways.

    I won a free return flight to basically anywhere in Europe.

    I actually never did anything with it, because at the time I couldn’t afford to pay for someone else to go with me (I would have gone with my partner).

    I regret not just flying on my own, but them’s the rubs - I was, and am, a bit of an idiot.

    I also once won a game key by making a funny YouTube comment on a Unit Lost video once too - but I never used that either; it wasn’t a game I was interested in, I just liked to watch the vids for a bit of a laugh.

    I don’t win much, but when I do I squander my wins.

  • Canadian_Cabinet
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    43 months ago

    A few years ago I won an expensive audio interface and headset from a retailer. Funny thing is that I don’t remember signing up for that specific giveaway

  • @[email protected]
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    3 months ago

    Sports gambling. Won idk around 60 euros maybe more and stopped. 60 euros for someone in highschool in country where euro was not used is a lot.

  • Elaine Cortez
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    13 months ago
    • I was the winner of my school’s science competition, I’d made a volcano that could emit “lava” (baking soda and vinegar)
    • At school I won a contest where we had to design posters for movies that didn’t exist, and the winner would get theirs put on the wall
    • Lots of high-speed go-karting sessions!
    • Not sure if this counts as a competition, but I had an admin of an art website select my art and feature it on the front page for a while which resulted in it getting almost 500,000 views (I remember panicking wondering why I suddenly got so many messages in my inbox!)
  • @[email protected]
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    13 months ago

    I won a robot R2D2 in a raffle. This was like over 10 years ago. It had voice commands, and somehow understood me better than Siri.

  • @[email protected]
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    43 months ago

    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.

  • @[email protected]
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    63 months ago

    When I was still being taken to church I won the door prize at youth group (church for teens) one night during a special event we were running (some thing to encourage people to invite their non-believing school friends and show how “hip” and “fun” they were, there were raffles and video games alongside our usual “live music”, skate ramps and bbq). The prize itself was a mobile phone. I was so happy because I didn’t already have one, but ultimately my parents decided I couldn’t have/use it until I got a job to pay for the credit. I did eventually get a job at KFC and was able to use the phone.

    Another time I was visiting NZ with my parents and we were touring the base of a mountain and the guide was like “guess the height and whoever gets closest wins this pen”, I won but my mum made me give the pen back because she thought I’d cheated somehow? Idfk. Still a bit salty about the pen.