£1 million Devon property raffle...

ginvzt

Well, the Devon guys are doing well - just appeared on BBC breakfast today. That will surely generate more publicity.
I think there was something said like that: "But your home is not worth £1mil now, so that is why you are trying to raffle, as you had it on the market before and couldn't sell it?". Well, you have to give it to them, they didn't got lost for words, and started talking about "giving someone a dream!"

axact

Seems like everyone is so busy with whether this is a good idea or not and have ignored the question which was ' How much is a Adult Full Season Course Fishing licence

Answer according to http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/subjects/fish/399730/ is £25 if I read it correctly.

bubblesmoney

Andypez wrote: »

I am amazed at the amount of cynicism out there in terms of these competitions, we all know that you don't get something for nothing, but lets look at what can be gained! why are some people so negative!?!

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bubblesmoney
whats more amazing is the bolton property costing 1 million pounds is being sold to raise 5million pounds !!!! via the raffle instead of the 1million the property is supposedly worth. yes i know they are including a business as well, but wonder if it is actually worth what they claim

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Have you even checked out the website and the small print?!?! i doubt it, as there are guarantees placed on it with the solicitors in terms of valuations etc. also it is clear that your math is all at sorts, as they are not just raffling the villa...it is a business and a Harley Davidson Motorcycle as well.

I agree that admin costs in relation to the percentage is high, but what real effect does that have on the £25 ticket? absolutely none, for example, if only 100,000 tickets are sold, then the villa/business/Harley will not be given as the prize, however the money which will equate to £2,500,000, less 35%(875,000) will mean that for £25 i have a 1 in 100,000 chance of winning £1,625,000... now, in my book that ain't too bad! and worth a punt! why shouldn't the owners profit from it?!? isn't that the purpose of 90% of raffles etc in the world!? why would you do one otherwise.
admittedly the 30% seems high but so what, why shouldn't they get anything out of it?
We are all adults and able to make informed choices from the information put in front of us.

So, to put it simply, if you want to buy a ticket, buy one, if you don't, don't, but it is best not to critical about something without reading the full facts and coming across as a cynic.

Remember - If you do as you always did, you will always get what you always got,.

so I for one think it is a good opportunity and possibly £25 well spent, to get a £1million pound villa, and a business valued at £4million and a Harley Davidson, so i am buying a ticket to this instead of spending my £3.50 a week on the lottery a week for 7 weeks with odds of 14million to 1!

Make up your own mind at www.newyearmillionaire.com

u r entitled to ur opinion and i am entitled to mine and YES I DID READ THE SMALL PRINT on the terms and conditions of the relavant websites as i was interested in buying the tickets. but didnt buy as i thought the 30-35% admin costs was a rip off. i still think it is a rip off, more so after reading the terms and conditions. i would much rather buy the national lottery ticket and dream on, i know i wont get anything but u never know. the only time i won was when i got ten pounds but i lost the ticket! but what the heck just trying my luck and at the very least i will be funding charitable causes via the national lottery by buying the tickets while dreaming of winning some day. i am not interested in the business as it might become a noose around my neck with liabilities or they might have cloned the business and supply and sales chains and next years income might be swallowed up by the vendors cloned company and will still have to foot the outgoings of the business the winner gets dumped with. present customers of the business will prefer to go with the cloned business as they will know the vendors and would much rather be with a business that knows what they are doing rather than do business with a newbie numpty who won the business in a lottery. SO EFFECTIVELY THE VALUE OF THE BUSINESS TO ANYONE WHO WINS THE LOTTERY IS ZERO or worse will be a big loss the following year. as for the harley davidson 2nd hand i wouldnt be interested in one. my only interest was the house but lost interest after seeing the admin costs and the small print. u liked the idea, so buy it. dont expect me to sing this deals charms from the flagpole. to each their own.

ps: i have the misfortune of being related (one of my uncles and a total jerk at that) (in another country) to an expert conman who specialises in launching companies and factories in export related sectors and who specialises in selling his companies / issueing shares / directorships in his companies to others after he has cloned the company and its supply and sales chains. effectively after the old company changes hands the cloned company swallows all incomings with the contacts that he has and old company is stuck with all old bills. i know people who got screwed because they got sucked in by his tall stories, people who got screwed financially included some of his own childen. moral of the story for people who know didly squat about business is IF IT LOOKS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE THEN DONT SPEND YOUR MONEY ON IT. running a corner shop has got big risks, running a 4million pound company has got bigger risks. if u win the lottery u might find that u won the hangmans noose instead of the dream lifestyle. have u ever seen businesses go pear shaped and people going bankcrupt??? i have seen, so i still stick to what i said in my original post. u r free to think my post was cynical.

ps: my maths is sorted enough whereby i can sit and do didly squat for the rest of my life and still have a reasonable life style (maybe not in the uk but still wont be cribbing about not being able to afford my next meal) and it is sorted enough excluding my pension / other savings, for me to have adequately covered my (soon to be born) childs univ fees and even wedding expenses in a pot which i dont plan on touching for my other needs. i might not be 'rich' (in an extravagant sense) but my maths is sorted enough to have my life needs to be covered reasonably. so no worries if my maths (or even english) abilities desert me now.:rotfl:

ALTERNATIVE2

well.
Maybe im stupid but yep i have just spent £25 quid on a ticket.
As for the numbers of sales though they are going pretty well!
when i bought mine the numbers were looking pretty good.
24 450 ish
so just over halfway there!
Also considering the time it took me to read through it all there were about another 30 sold its looking like its got to be worth it!
Anyway Surely we can live in hope cant we? Its about the only chance i will get of owning a property like that in this country as we have been well and truly priced out of the market and thats on a 3 bed semi in the middle of town!
We can but dream.
Good luck to everyone who has bought into it too.
Cheers
ALT

ginvzt

Well, after yesterday's appearance on TV they sold more than 7000 tickets. It was just over 17000 sold when I looked yesterday before lunch, and it is rather more than that now!

ALTERNATIVE2

They seem to be pushing them out :beer:
Good luck too them is all i can say:D
25 220 :T

If they keep them selling at this rate they should be able to close the competition in a few weeks! wohooooooo
:j

MBM

Since 10.29 today they have sold 708 so thats 236 per hour or £5900 per hour.

studentdave

OMGG!

Its on 26,865

Higher, higher..:j

Only 19135 to go..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7581600.stm

poppy10_2

The Gambling Commission should investigate the couple selling their £1 million house through a £25-a-ticket lottery, a gambling law expert has said.

Brian and Wendy Wilshaw are selling their Devon house and grounds, which they say is worth £1m, in a £25-per-entry competition. They have said that their legal advisors have cleared the competition, but one gambling law expert has raised questions about the legality of the plan.

Antoinette Jucker is a gambling law expert with Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind OUT-LAW.COM, and she thinks the competition is against the law.

"I think this is an illegal lottery. The Gambling Commission should take an interest in this," she said. "If they don't do anything, others will do the same thing, raffling houses or cars or anything else that they're struggling to sell."

Competitions and lotteries are tightly controlled by law. It is against the law to run a lottery for personal profit, and only small numbers of lotteries gain licences to operate. Competitions can be run for profit but they must involve an element of skill.

The Wilshaws are asking a question which is intended to satisfy the condition that the competition involves skill. It is "what is the cost of an adult full season coarse fishing licence for 2008/2009?".

The Gambling Act says that to avoid being a lottery, a competition's skill element must be failed by a "significant proportion" of the people who enter. The answer to the Wilshaws' question can be found on an internet search engine within seconds.

"This question falls foul of section 14(5) [of the Gambling Act]," said Jucker. "It has two tests and this competition fails both of them. A significant proportion of entrants will 'win' and the question won't deter people from participating. The prize is being awarded wholly by chance because the overwhelming majority of entrants will get the answer right."

"How do you choose a winner when almost everyone gets the answer right? You take their name out of a hat. That makes it a game of chance, and therefore an illegal lottery.

When the Gambling Act was going through Parliament, the clear intention was that the only legal lotteries would be those that operated for good causes, not those that operate for personal gain. This competition is side-stepping that intention," she said.

poppy10_2

http://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/Client/faq_detail.asp?id=180&sector=5

Q. Can I sell my home, for my own benefit, through a lottery rather than using an estate agent?

A. No, under the Gambling Act 2005 Lotteries (raffles) cannot be run for private or commercial gain.

Doesn't get much clearer than that. Who wants to put in the first official complaint?