Swoopo.co.uk - I need your help

4743hudsonj

michael1983l wrote: »

I think the fact the gambling commision has said they will keep an eye on the situation is a givaway that there is some element of gambling present.

it also stipulates thats they dont think it is but are maybe doing it as it closely resembles elements of gambling.

if it were gambling then they would not just be "keeping an eye on it" after all this time
and it really isnt gambling

i could counter your reply about bid numbers with ebay

you could have a millionaire

and a billionaire

wanting a rare item

neither knows how much money the other is willing to spend

so they could keep bidding and bidding

and end up paying over the odds

THIS IS NOT GAMBLING

there is no chance in it

instead their are 1 or more active bidders making concious decisions to offer a price for a product that in this case is accepted at the whim of a timer, as is ebay with a listing time counter.

for this reason it does not fulfil all the criteria as listed by yourself in the op

michael1983l

4743hudsonj wrote: »

it also stipulates thats they dont think it is but are maybe doing it as it closely resembles elements of gambling.

if it were gambling then they would not just be "keeping an eye on it" after all this time
and it really isnt gambling

i could counter your reply about bid numbers with ebay

you could have a millionaire

and a billionaire

wanting a rare item

neither knows how much money the other is willing to spend

so they could keep bidding and bidding

and end up paying over the odds

THIS IS NOT GAMBLING

there is no chance in it

instead their are 1 or more active bidders making concious decisions to offer a price for a product that in this case is accepted at the whim of a timer, as is ebay with a listing time counter.

for this reason it does not fulfil all the criteria as listed by yourself in the op

how is that a counter, if you lose your auction on ebay it costs you nothing, if you lose your auction on swoopo it could cost you hundreds of pounds.

4743hudsonj

michael1983l wrote: »

how is that a counter, if you lose your auction on ebay it costs you nothing, if you lose your auction on swoopo it could cost you hundreds of pounds.

one quote i saw on a site said how in sothebys, you ay an entry fee, so if you lose your auction, you lose money with no gain, thats gameling by your standards.

Swoopo is just an accelerated version of this

chance would be stipulated by a random, un biased and systematic system which results in a winner of a game

swoopos factor for winning is not random as its other peoples actions which affect of you win or not.

michael1983l

4743hudsonj wrote: »

one quote i saw on a site said how in sothebys, you ay an entry fee, so if you lose your auction, you lose money with no gain, thats gameling by your standards.

Swoopo is just an accelerated version of this

chance would be stipulated by a random, un biased and systematic system which results in a winner of a game

swoopos factor for winning is not random as its other peoples actions which affect of you win or not.

sotherbys is an enterance fee to the building of which you are guaranteed to gain enterance, swoopo is paying to bid on an item you are not guaranteed to win. Totally different. It would not be random if swoopo displayed counters of how many people were watching and full bid history of the item instead of the last 10 or so bids as well as peoples bid balance. But because they choose to hide this information to maximise their extoriton rate for your hard earned cash that makes it chance and therfore gambling.

4743hudsonj

michael1983l wrote: »

sotherbys is an enterance fee to the building of which you are guaranteed to gain enterance, swoopo is paying to bid on an item you are not guaranteed to win. Totally different. It would not be random if swoopo displayed counters of how many people were watching and full bid history of the item instead of the last 10 or so bids as well as peoples bid balance. But because they choose to hide this information to maximise their extoriton rate for your hard earned cash that makes it chance and therfore gambling.

its not different at all

sothebys

you pay for the chance to bid on items you may or may not win if you so wish to

swoopo

you pay for the chance to bid on items you may or may not win ...

see the same

you pay a fee in order to be able to the bis

they way you pay is different but the reason the same therefore making them the same


as for not showing bids

i agree they should but this does not make winning random

you have a warped view of what random actually stipulates. other peoples actions are not random, they are bidding in order to win an item just like you

that is not random

therefore there is no chance
therefore it is a auction and not gambling

i agree swoopo adopt a rather shadey front

and some things need changing but they cannot be classed as gambling

michael1983l

These auctions are run by chance as there is no way of knowing when the auction will be complete due to the fact time is added on each time somebody makes a bid. It turns out the Gambling Commission are already looking into these sites anyway.

4743hudsonj

michael1983l wrote: »

These auctions are run by chance as there is no way of knowing when the auction will be complete due to the fact time is added on each time somebody makes a bid. It turns out the Gambling Commission are already looking into these sites anyway.

but that still isnt chance, thats external human influences

....not chance at all

michael1983l

4743hudsonj wrote: »

but that still isnt chance, thats external human influences

....not chance at all

First Goalscorer on a football match isn't chance either, it is affected by external influencies. Its still gambling though. At the end of the day swoopo asks you to stake money to win an auction, with no indication of how many people are interested or how many bids other members have at their disposal. You can spend vast ammounts of money and still walk away with nothing to show for it. That my friend is gambling, and it gives it away where the parent company is called "Entertainment shopping"

RadoJo

I think the essential difference is that with the swopoo model, there is an element of chance, but the ultimate result is influenced by the actions of those involved in the auction - the gambling 'definition' seems to require that the outcome is decided completely by chance which is presumably why they do not consider it a lottery.

The fact that they are 'looking into' these sites, suggests that they are either a) considering changing the definition of lottery to include the swoopo model or b) considering adding this model as a new class of site with guidelines on how they should encourage transparency.

Michael - instead of spending your time trying to define gambling, it might make more sense to pursue this from a different angle. If sites like this are being looked into by the gambling commission, providing more information, collecting data etc would probably have much more impact that just insisting that your definition of 'chance' is the correct one. Posting on here is a good start, and you could raise awareness of the dangers of these sites without needing to have them classified as gambling sites - visit other review sites and explain how they work, encourage more openness about their practices regardless of their official classification. You don't need to change the law to make a difference.

view

Where does it show the "13,450 bids placed against it" you state in your original post?