Don't bother with Free Postcode Lottery

Raspberry_Queen
Raspberry_Queen Posts: 115
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edited 16 February 2018 at 2:28PM in Boost your income
MoneySavingExpert Insert Feb 2018:

Hi there, Free Postcode Lottery has asked for a right of reply. MSE doesn't endorse anything a company says on the Forum.

Hi. I'm Chris, the Founder of FreePostcodeLottery.com and I've been invited to make a statement about this post. We're 100% free and funded by ads so, of course, we can only give away smaller amounts of money compared to paid lotteries. Because we're free you don't have to pay anything. You could argue that you are paying with your time, but we don't force anyone to participate and our members tell us that it's an enjoyable way to fill a minute or so whilst they are waiting for something else. Every month about 650 people win a share of over £30,000. As the site gets bigger we raise the number of prizes, and total prize amount disproportionately so that your chances of winning something actually increase. We've given away over £565,000 to thousands of our members so far and whilst we can't promise you a win, lots of people do. We would hate to think that anyone visited our site with false expectations so we're transparent with our figures, including the percentage of the UK population currently participating, and active postcodes. We're not a source of income, but a fun site where you might win hundreds of pounds for nothing. Whether you participate or not is entirely up to you. Thanks to all for your helpful replies.

Back to Raspberry Queen's original post...


Your chances of winning are very small.

Number of postcodes in the UK: 1,750,871 x 31.26% of postcodes registered =
547322 people competing with you to win. In fact, it is higher than this, as there are often several people registered with each postcode. (They no longer give statistics for how many individuals are signed up to FPL, which is what you really need to work out your tiny chances of winning.)

If you are the only person registered with your postcode, and there are two chances to win big each day, you have a maximum of a 1 in 273661 chance of winning big each day (the chances are actually much less, given that more than one person is usually registered to each postcode).

273661 / 365.25 = a one in 749.243 chance of winning per year.

In other words, it would take the average player more than 749 years to win a decent amount on the free postcode lottery. And you may never win it at all!

The statistics for if you include the smaller chances to win (£10-£20+) are as follows. I'm not including the weekly Quidco draw as it would make it too complicated, the £5 flash ad draws as I don't quite know how they work, or the two bonus draws as it takes some time to build up enough bonus to unlock them). I'm counting the twice-daily stackpots as 10 chances to win (as there seems to be an average of about 5 spaces on the stack each time). That is approximately 14 chances to win each day.

547322 / 14 = 39094 (to the nearest whole number). So there is a maximum of 1 in 39094 chance to win each day. Divided by 365.25, that makes the yearly chance of winning 1 in 107.035.

In other words, it would take the average player (who is the only person registered at their postcode) more than 107 years to win something, even just a little prize.

I have decided to quit, and spend the time checking FPL doing something else instead. I am thinking of trying VoxPopMe when I set my new phone up. It is an app that pays you £0.25 for short review videos.

It took me about 4 minutes or more each day to check the results; if I spent 4 minutes every day, that's over 24 hours per year. If I instead spent 4 minutes every day making a VoxPopMe video, that would have earned me £91.25 over the year. In 2 years, I would be on £182.50 - more than you win in the survey draw, and about 747 years quicker than the average time it would take to win it on FPL!
«134567

Comments

  • SailorSam
    SailorSam Posts: 22,754
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    It must have taken you more than 4 minutes to write all that.
    Think of all the money you may have earned doing something else.
    Liverpool is one of the wonders of Britain,
    What it may grow to in time, I know not what.

    Daniel Defoe: 1725.
  • Lol :D

    It did, but I was dithering over whether to leave and wanted to put the statistics up, so that other people can make the decision quickly. I also don't have any ways to make pennies in minutes yet either

    ETA - I knew someone would say this!
  • Wizzbang
    Wizzbang Posts: 4,716
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    Thank you, I appreciate this. I've been signed up for 2 years now and never won a penny. I was starting to wonder the same - and you have confirmed it's not worth it. I will drop it much like Clixsense, mysurvey and other survey companies that pay a pittance.
    Minimalist
    Extra income since 01/11/12 £36,546.45

  • harrys_nan
    harrys_nan Posts: 1,777
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    So the odds are very high, so what? It's free doesn't cost me anything .
    apart from about 3/4 mins of my day checking the results.
    I may never win, but I can't win the lottery either and that cost me if I want to play.
    Treat other's how you like to be treated.

    Harry born 23/09/2008
    New baby grandson, Louie born 28/06/2012,
    Proud nanny to two beautiful boys :j
    And now I have the joy of having my foster granddaughter becoming my real granddaughter. Can't ask for anything better

    UPDATE,
    As of today 180919. my granddaughter is now my official granddaughter, adoption finally granted
  • The difference with the lottery is that you don't have to check it every single day, it's much less time consuming, and the potential rewards are life-changing.
  • takman
    takman Posts: 3,876
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    It really takes no time at all to check the results. I get the email daily in my inbox which I read on my phone, clicking the email, clicking the link looking at the postcode and then closing the Webpage takes at most 10 seconds.

    So why wouldn't you spend 10 seconds doing that considering your happy to spend 4 minutes a day to make £91.25 a year, that works out at 25p for those 4 minutes. That is only £3.75 an hour, so if your happy working for such a small amount of money it would be hypocritical to then say postcode lottery is a waste of time.
  • jadex
    jadex Posts: 747
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    takman wrote: »
    It really takes no time at all to check the results. I get the email daily in my inbox which I read on my phone, clicking the email, clicking the link looking at the postcode and then closing the Webpage takes at most 10 seconds.
    so you don't check survey draw, video draw, stackpot and bonus draw then? if you do then it is more than 10 secs
  • duchy
    duchy Posts: 19,511
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    And your point is ?

    Some people have time for competitions , others don't and most fall somewhere in between. Just because someone's time management is different to yours doesn't make them wrong .
    I Would Rather Climb A Mountain Than Crawl Into A Hole

    MSE Florida wedding .....no problem
  • badmemory
    badmemory Posts: 7,630
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    If you don't think it is worth it don't do it. Whilst you won't improve the odds for the rest of us you will improve the prize values for those who do win.

    I expect there are quite a few DFWs who do it, who also do surveys that they get screened out of at the last moment, not much difference really. It is all down to whether you feel it is worth the bother.
  • takman
    takman Posts: 3,876
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    jadex wrote: »
    so you don't check survey draw, video draw, stackpot and bonus draw then? if you do then it is more than 10 secs

    Sometime I do click through the buttons and that only takes a few seconds more, but I've never watched the video because I've never seen one that interests me.

    So for the people who like to enter competitions and do surveys then it is definitely worth doing even if the odds of winning are low. For the people who have no intertest in it then they won't be doing it anyway. So although knowing the odds of winning is always interesting I don't think it should really influence someone to stop taking part in a free prize draw if they are doing it already.
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