house comp.

tgroom57

Is there a thread for discussing the recent house comp? It's been posted twice (at least) and just deleted again.

I was just about to add:
FYI bought for £435k in 2011. nethouseprices.

Marg2k8

I'm not sure what comp you mean. I seem to recall seeing a thread that said in the title win a house, but when I read the small print, it was effectively letting you rent it for free for 12 months. I think it was in Preston. Is this the one you mean? I cannot think that a small house in Preston would be worth £435k.

Moneybot

I think you mean the one that was on the main board and then in postal. It was reported for self promotion and taken down.

It was £2 a ticket and 500,000 tickets had to be sold or it promoter could decide not to give the house as a prize. If they gave the cash pot instead they could keep 20% of the cash.

Nice way to make some money without having to actually give a real prize. Thinking of setting up something on those lines with the newt as a prize. 50p a ticket if I don't sell 10000000 tickets I keep the newt and give the "winner" 50% of the ticket sales.

mjm3346

It was posted first time as self promotion, don't know about the second time.
There was a press association, or something similar, story so lots of papers had an article.
Requires 500,0000 (£2) paid entries by the closing date, less than that and the house might be awarded or a cash sum of sales less 20%.
House on the market for £650,000, did not sell when tried at before at more than that and as low as £500,000.

(Reminds me there was a comp for a smaller house on here years ago, I presume that fell through in the end)

chrissycn

I posted it the 2nd time, so it shouldn't have been removed for self promotion. I would like to know why it was removed though.

There was a similar comp a fair few years ago that charged for entries, the winner was German if my memory serves me correctly. So these type of raffles can be done. - EDIT - I've just googled it and it was Oldborough Estate in Devon in 2009, they charged £25 per ticket and didn't have a free postal option.

"Christoph Jaeger from Hamburg paid just £25 for one ticket in the draw, which won him the Oldborough Mansion estate at Morchard Bishop, near Crediton." Found here -

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/8063925.stm

mjm3346

By asking a question and offering the free entry route they are avoiding controls that would apply if there was just a paid entry route (bit like ITV etc).

IDeamOfFairies

I thought that any kind of raffle required a licence from the Gambling Commission (especially one that was trying to raise £1 million)

mjm3346

IDeamOfFairies wrote: »

I thought that any kind of raffle required a licence from the Gambling Commission (especially one that was trying to raise £1 million)

You can get round it by making it skill (answer a question) and/or offering a free entry route so under the rules it does not count as a raffle/lottery.

As stated in paragraph 2.4 above, an arrangement is a lottery only if the participants are required to pay to enter. Therefore, free draws always have been and remain exempt from statutory control. Schedule 2 to the Act gives details of what is to be treated as amounting to ‘payment to enter’ for the purposes of distinguishing free draws from lotteries

Secondly, cases where there is a choice of entry. Here, the arrangement will not be treated as requiring payment to participate in the arrangement and so will not be a lottery, if:
• each individual who is eligible to participate has a choice whether to do so by
paying or by sending a communication
• that communication is either:
o a letter sent by ordinary post, again whether first or second class post
o or some other method which is neither more expensive nor less convenient
than entering by the paid route. Again this method must be charged at the
‘normal rate’; there can be no additional payment over what it would
normally cost to use that method of communication
• the choice is publicised so that it is likely to come to the attention of all those
intending to participate
• the system for allocating prizes does not distinguish between those using either route.

chrissycn

I have just been informed that when I posted this competition yesterday, somebody reported it to admin and it was then removed. It's free to enter via post and I am not in any way connected to this comp - what exactly did I do wrong??

Moneybot

Having a competition post removed doesn't mean you did anything wrong.

The competition itself sounds not 100% and having it on the mse website lends it an air of credibility it might not otherwise get. It is like any of the pyramid schemes - they would get taken down too.

There was one on here that was a crowd funding one - again the main aim appeared to be for the promoter to make money from the competition.

jaibaby

chrissycn wrote: »

It's free to enter via post and I am not in any way connected to this comp - what exactly did I do wrong??

Technically, if you win it won't be free though. You're looking at £30,000 for stamp duty for a start.


I always thought anything where you had to pay a price to enter, would be classed as gambling (free route or not) and would require a license.

I'm steering clear anyway.