BOTB - rigged?

[Mirinjawbro]

ESD1711 said:

These are the ones I’ve seen mentioned, seemingly all from about Mid November kinda time as well:

Paragon competitions - £750
Thecarcompetition.co.uk - £200
Hot Comps - Darts Bundle tickets
DreamTech Competitions - £3000
The Giveaway Guys - £500 credit
Elite Competitions - £285000
Raffolux - £5000
Lucky Raffle Uk - £6000 (cash alternative for a car)
7Days Performance - £2000
DreamTech - £1000
BOTB - M5 + £70000

Edited by ESD1711 on Wednesday 6th January 18:19

although not scientifically possible. unless hes allowed to buy a very high percent of tickets in all competitions, how can this ever happen?

[Dan_1981]

I follow 7dayperformance on FB and after each draw reading some of the comments it's scary how much some people are spending on there. They think nothing of blowing £400 / £500 on a draw.


I just checked & they have a £2500 cash draw active at the moment @ 0.99p per ticket. Max ticket per person is 100.

Maybe he's just throwing lots of cash at specific draws and has been particularly lucky of late....

[DonkeyApple]

Mirinjawbro said:

ESD1711 said:

These are the ones I’ve seen mentioned, seemingly all from about Mid November kinda time as well:

Paragon competitions - £750
Thecarcompetition.co.uk - £200
Hot Comps - Darts Bundle tickets
DreamTech Competitions - £3000
The Giveaway Guys - £500 credit
Elite Competitions - £285000
Raffolux - £5000
Lucky Raffle Uk - £6000 (cash alternative for a car)
7Days Performance - £2000
DreamTech - £1000
BOTB - M5 + £70000

Edited by ESD1711 on Wednesday 6th January 18:19

although not scientifically possible. unless hes allowed to buy a very high percent of tickets in all competitions, how can this ever happen?

A legitimate theory would be that the punter won the big prize first and then used the money to fund a comical shopping spree of tickets as a complete addict and the subsequent winnings are dwarfed by what was spent.

[DonkeyApple]

NGRhodes said:

I've worked in the online Gambling Industry (NDA so can't say anything), these kind of patterns would definitely attract attention of fraud prevention teams at a banking and gambling company level.

A few of the winnings are from high profile companies that would be under too much scrutiny (financial and gambling authorities depending on which country they are registered in) to be worth risking for what is relatively small amounts in this situation (compared to their declared incomes), which hints towards this being a customer campaign of some kind; could be simply someone who has spent heavily on lots of tickets per competition (better odds of winning compared to spreading entries over time) or something illegal.

Any investigation will be completely private, so we will never find out unless there is a prosecution, so will be quite futile speculating.

Edited by NGRhodes on Thursday 7th January 11:40

Yup. And you tend to not prosecute but settle privately as you don't want the flaw they found going public.

[Glenn63]

I highly doubt it will be BOTB or the other companies up to something naughty, if there is something going on (as it looks like) it will be the man himself finding some kind of way around the system.
As others have said he could just have spent extremely heavily to up his odds but doing that on all those competitions? Do people play that many comps? I like the odd play on BOTB or dream car if something i fancy comes up but his winnings look like all kinds of random competitions!
Also on his winning video call claims he had lost his business during first lockdown and it’s been a struggle, would a man struggling be blasting thousands on random internet completions?

[ecsrobin]

Glenn63 said:

I highly doubt it will be BOTB or the other companies up to something naughty, if there is something going on (as it looks like) it will be the man himself finding some kind of way around the system.
As others have said he could just have spent extremely heavily to up his odds but doing that on all those competitions? Do people play that many comps? I like the odd play on BOTB or dream car if something i fancy comes up but his winnings look like all kinds of random competitions!
Also on his winning video call claims he had lost his business during first lockdown and it’s been a struggle, would a man struggling be blasting thousands on random internet completions?

I thought I’d have a hunt around I don’t play these games but find it fascinating that so many play them in quite an unregulated field. But companies house doesn’t show his business folded and with recent changes it also shows he started a second business at the end of last year.

Why would you lie on something like than unless your’e trying to hide something.

[anonymous-user]

the lack of transparency and regulation is the crux, too much doubt.

[nunpuncher]

Mirinjawbro said:

ESD1711 said:

These are the ones I’ve seen mentioned, seemingly all from about Mid November kinda time as well:

Paragon competitions - £750
Thecarcompetition.co.uk - £200
Hot Comps - Darts Bundle tickets
DreamTech Competitions - £3000
The Giveaway Guys - £500 credit
Elite Competitions - £285000
Raffolux - £5000
Lucky Raffle Uk - £6000 (cash alternative for a car)
7Days Performance - £2000
DreamTech - £1000
BOTB - M5 + £70000

Edited by ESD1711 on Wednesday 6th January 18:19

although not scientifically possible. unless hes allowed to buy a very high percent of tickets in all competitions, how can this ever happen?

It seems highly unlikely to me that he would have bought enough entries to increase his odds to the point of winning that many competitions in such a short period of time.

Unless these companies are using names written on a piece of paper thrown into a hat then it suggests to me that there cyber security is not up to scratch and this individual has in some way exploited it.

While I doubt any of the companies are in any way involved it does throw into question whether there is some sort of back door into their systems that may or may not have been exploited before but has gone unnoticed as no other individual has been stupid enough to exploit it on so many competitions in so short a period.

I don't believe for 1 minute that the guy his just lucky.

[maniac886]

Glenn63 said:

I highly doubt it will be BOTB or the other companies up to something naughty, if there is something going on (as it looks like) it will be the man himself finding some kind of way around the system.
As others have said he could just have spent extremely heavily to up his odds but doing that on all those competitions? Do people play that many comps? I like the odd play on BOTB or dream car if something i fancy comes up but his winnings look like all kinds of random competitions!
Also on his winning video call claims he had lost his business during first lockdown and it’s been a struggle, would a man struggling be blasting thousands on random internet completions?

If he bought a load of tickets the max you can buy per person is 100. In any instance its suspect looking at the number of comps this guy has won over the last few months!

[bambi]

my guess , multiple accounts to get round the entry limits .


then loads of entries ... money to burn ... or wash ..

[anonymous-user]

Statistically impossible would be my first thought.

The BOTB and elite whatever wins are significant. Theres not a chance he's won those without something else being at play in the background. One outright win is possible even if it is against the odds. Several with 2 being large sums. Forget it. Simply not possible.

[Algarve]

nunpuncher said:

Unless these companies are using names written on a piece of paper thrown into a hat then it suggests to me that there cyber security is not up to scratch and this individual has in some way exploited it.

Smart enough to breach the security of 11 different companies, but stupid enough to personally claim the prize on each of them?

That doesn't sound legit... if someone could do that they'd have had 11 different 'winners' and this thread wouldn't exist, and they could keep doing whatever they were doing indefinitely.

It would also be extremely unlikely that someone cheating like that would claim £200, £500 prizes etc and bring more attention. Why not save the cheating for the 6 figure cars?

[TriplePPP]

Hi all, long time lurker for many many years.

Thought I’d add my 2 cents in as I run one of these prize competition companies.

It would be very unlikely he had hacked anyone, most of these websites are very secure and they normally cross reference entries vs payments anyway (I know we do)

Whilst there certainly is a lot of underhand things going on out there in this line of work, I would be shocked if it was some form of collusion between these companies.

BOTB advertise heavily against all search terms and other company names on Google. They also have far too much to lose for it to be worth it vs the profits they make doing it legitimately.

My guess would be he is maxing out his entries on multiple competitions.

[CraigZR]

Not botb but to me thats no right

[philcray]

I think the element of "skill" e.g. spot the ball is part of the problem as this allows for interpretation by the organising company, and hence allows them to direct the prize to who they want (should they be so inclined). It wouldn't take a criminal mastermind to pass the full size "spot the ball" picture on to a few mates who can then have a pretty good chance of making the winning cross, which would all look above board if investigated.

[ESD1711]

bambi said:

my guess , multiple accounts to get round the entry limits .


then loads of entries ... money to burn ... or wash ..

That seems like the most likely to me as well.

Sign up account 1. Buy max entries.
Sign up account 2. Buy max entries.
Sign up account 3. Buy max entries

Etc etc.

I guess if you buy up maybe 75% of the tickets in a draw, you make yourself a favourite to win whilst leaving a margin of profit in it.

Stake £120 to win £250.
Stake that £250 to win £500
Stake that £500 to win £1000

Etc etc etc.

I guess that’s ‘plausible’ but even at that, you’d like to think it would stick out like a sore thumb in the entry lists and of course runs the risk that despite having x amount of tickets, you still don’t come out the winner.

And if that is the case, getting around the entry limits is surely still a form of cheating?

[Mirinjawbro]

TriplePPP said:

Hi all, long time lurker for many many years.

Thought I’d add my 2 cents in as I run one of these prize competition companies.

It would be very unlikely he had hacked anyone, most of these websites are very secure and they normally cross reference entries vs payments anyway (I know we do)

Whilst there certainly is a lot of underhand things going on out there in this line of work, I would be shocked if it was some form of collusion between these companies.

BOTB advertise heavily against all search terms and other company names on Google. They also have far too much to lose for it to be worth it vs the profits they make doing it legitimately.

My guess would be he is maxing out his entries on multiple competitions.

but as people have said above, sometimes its max 100 tickets of maybe 1000/2000? 5k, even 10k? there's no chance he can win that on all of them.


or

all these companies have got together to get someone to "win" on loads of comps. . this amazing luck and talk of it are over multiple forums and WOM and increases the traffic and people playing for them

[anonymous-user]

ESD1711 said:

That seems like the most likely to me as well.

Sign up account 1. Buy max entries.
Sign up account 2. Buy max entries.
Sign up account 3. Buy max entries

Winning would be void, i pretty sure BOTB terms limit to one account per person.

[ESD1711]

The Spruce Goose said:

Winning would be void, i pretty sure BOTB terms limit to one account per person.

Agreed. But who’s checking that, particularly at the level of the smaller companies?

What’s to stop me signing up using my own email address, then my work email address, then my wife’s email address etc, then a random email I just created?

I’m not sure if the processes involved tbh or if there are other things in place to prevent that - it just seems like the most likely ‘loophole’ if there is one. I’m no expert though, purely guesswork / speculation.

[maniac886]

The Spruce Goose said:

Winning would be void, i pretty sure BOTB terms limit to one account per person.