BOTB - rigged?
Discussion
Alfahorn said:
I enter occasionally.
Usually when there's an Alfa as the prize. Like now, I've entered the competition for the Stelvio QF.
But as per the quote belowUsually when there's an Alfa as the prize. Like now, I've entered the competition for the Stelvio QF.
DonkeyApple said:
...
But all these FB and IG raffles that have suddenly appeared are very heavily incentivised to be bent. Masked owners, fly by night, incorrect legal structure etc. They are the new version of a ‘gofundme’ page. All the punters are doing is buying a bloke a car. Instead of using pity to get the money in it just uses greed and stupidity.
You (and I fell for it too!) have given money to a company that probably/potentially has cheat software that means that only their mate/family member will win. Yes, you'll get some "raffle numbers for your entry" But 2 mins before the draw, they will program their pagethatlookslikeGoogle (but is a small software programme) to only choose their mates raffle numbers. But all these FB and IG raffles that have suddenly appeared are very heavily incentivised to be bent. Masked owners, fly by night, incorrect legal structure etc. They are the new version of a ‘gofundme’ page. All the punters are doing is buying a bloke a car. Instead of using pity to get the money in it just uses greed and stupidity.
You, me and every one of the other X thousand entrants have literally ZERO chance of winning.
Yes the odds on winning the Lotto or Euromillions are far bigger 1 in 45M or 1 in 140m. But they ARE genuine odds. You, me or any other player has a GENUINE chance. It's not rigged. Simply because it doesn't need to be and the regulations and regulators have real weight behind them. Fines, prison terms, removal of their licence etc.
I imagine that the "Onlinerafflecompanyltd" are technically "entertainment" or somesuch, to bypass any sort of regulatory oversight. It's why the over simple questions exist. "What colour is an Orange" "Who is Boris Johnson?"
The legal side is that it is a ‘game of skill’ not ‘game of chance’. What that means is that you can operate a raffle outside of the Gambling Commision. But there are still clear laws to adhere to but the enforcement is negligible which is why it has been latched onto by the delightful social media world.
One of the clearest rules is that the question that must be asked in order to be a game of skill must be sufficiently difficult that a reasonable number of entrants will getnit wrong.
To have a question such as ‘who is the PM of UK’ you would technically have to be able to argue that the audience your marketing is targeting is specifically of very below average intelligence.
The other issue you have is the charge back risk. On a raffle a significant number of entrants will make a chargeback request when they don’t win!! So you need a payment processing firm that understands this and rejects them.
All in, to do it legitimately is relatively complex and looking at the structure of many of these FB raffles it seems clear to me that the majority are set up simply to take the money for the operator.
Some of the names involved are the same people who were running binary betting and crypto wheezes previously.
One of the clearest rules is that the question that must be asked in order to be a game of skill must be sufficiently difficult that a reasonable number of entrants will getnit wrong.
To have a question such as ‘who is the PM of UK’ you would technically have to be able to argue that the audience your marketing is targeting is specifically of very below average intelligence.
The other issue you have is the charge back risk. On a raffle a significant number of entrants will make a chargeback request when they don’t win!! So you need a payment processing firm that understands this and rejects them.
All in, to do it legitimately is relatively complex and looking at the structure of many of these FB raffles it seems clear to me that the majority are set up simply to take the money for the operator.
Some of the names involved are the same people who were running binary betting and crypto wheezes previously.
iacabu said:
I don't think any of the larger competition sites are scams as some people may think.
Indeed, for the raffle companies that have enough of a following to be able to do fixed/guaranteed end dates with no extensions, the business model is basically there for all of us to see, and it would appear to add up. There are at least 4 or 5 companies with guaranteed fixed end dates of less than a week from start, that regularly sell out and that turn over 3 or more cars every week.Example 1: Abarth 500 with 60k miles, these pop up in raffles quite often and typically work to a model of taking in £10k of entries (i.e. £10 for 1000 tickets or 99p for 10,000 tickets). On Autotrader you can find a good one for £6.5k with no effort, and I can only assume the guys that run these raffles are experienced in the trade anyway, so will know where to look to find much better deals than that.
That would seem to me to be a fairly tidy way of running an independent performance car dealer.
The barrier to entry is building enough of an audience to make it work in the first place, which is unfortunately why the waters are muddied by literally 10s of companies popping up every week trying to shift a single car. In the T&Cs they will almost always have a condition where by the end date is rolled over at least 4 times until they've sold enough tickets, or they'll just do a cash prize of 70% of tickets sold. They are easy to spot though, usually only advertising one car, very few tickets sold and no clear end to the competition.
ch37 said:
Indeed, for the raffle companies that have enough of a following to be able to do fixed/guaranteed end dates with no extensions, the business model is basically there for all of us to see, and it would appear to add up. There are at least 4 or 5 companies with guaranteed fixed end dates of less than a week from start, that regularly sell out and that turn over 3 or more cars every week.
Example 1: Abarth 500 with 60k miles, these pop up in raffles quite often and typically work to a model of taking in £10k of entries (i.e. £10 for 1000 tickets or 99p for 10,000 tickets). On Autotrader you can find a good one for £6.5k with no effort, and I can only assume the guys that run these raffles are experienced in the trade anyway, so will know where to look to find much better deals than that.
That would seem to me to be a fairly tidy way of running an independent performance car dealer.
The barrier to entry is building enough of an audience to make it work in the first place, which is unfortunately why the waters are muddied by literally 10s of companies popping up every week trying to shift a single car. In the T&Cs they will almost always have a condition where by the end date is rolled over at least 4 times until they've sold enough tickets, or they'll just do a cash prize of 70% of tickets sold. They are easy to spot though, usually only advertising one car, very few tickets sold and no clear end to the competition.
Yup. You have to own the goods prior to starting the raffle what hasn’t been tested legally is whether an ‘option’ would be suffice to meet those criteria. Example 1: Abarth 500 with 60k miles, these pop up in raffles quite often and typically work to a model of taking in £10k of entries (i.e. £10 for 1000 tickets or 99p for 10,000 tickets). On Autotrader you can find a good one for £6.5k with no effort, and I can only assume the guys that run these raffles are experienced in the trade anyway, so will know where to look to find much better deals than that.
That would seem to me to be a fairly tidy way of running an independent performance car dealer.
The barrier to entry is building enough of an audience to make it work in the first place, which is unfortunately why the waters are muddied by literally 10s of companies popping up every week trying to shift a single car. In the T&Cs they will almost always have a condition where by the end date is rolled over at least 4 times until they've sold enough tickets, or they'll just do a cash prize of 70% of tickets sold. They are easy to spot though, usually only advertising one car, very few tickets sold and no clear end to the competition.
And you’ve got the nail on the head re the marketing aspect. Historically, all the house raffles failed because you would need to spend more than the value of the property in marketing spend to attract enough buyers. They also fail because they are the wrong product for the UK gambling audience. Note how gaming sites typically use a woman with big knockers on TV at a time when any blokes still awake are drastically likely to be drunk.
. Trying to sell expensive tickets to a charming house in the country isn’t hitting the right notes for the gambling community and without them on board you will fail. You can’t sell to non gamblers in enough numbers or cost effectively. So if you get the right product which these new raffles have understood then you need to market your betting product into the same space that all other betting products are being marketed. And that is very high spend space. It’s among the most expensive space on the internet. To give a little bit of an idea just how expensive, the retail forex industry has an average cost to onboard a new client of between £800-£1200. And the TV betting sites are paying around £100-200 per viable acquisition. So from those examples you can see that legitimate gaming firms need to generate big sums from each client just to recoup the cost of acquiring that client.
Now what many social media campaigns do so as to keep upfront spend down is they agree splits with promoters. But these splits need to be very large to compensate for the risk of no upfront fees. For example, if you were to take something like this to one of the digital manager’s of a Love Island contestant you could easily be paying away more than 50% of the gross ticket value to the promoter.
There is a base level of activity which is just walk ins that are low cost but it’s a very small number. To get enough sales away you need to pay large sums. And if you have a time critical event, which a raffle should be legally, then you have to pay absolute top whack. There’s no clever, slow burn, well targeted campaign you have to leap out and just shoot in every single direction as quickly as possible.
What you will basically be doing for raffles is using the same ‘networks’ of pseudo celebs that are used to punt all dodgy deals to the most highly susceptible. These networks are basically like the Nigerian scams. Someone say in South London, Essex or up North will build a network of failed celebs and desperate wannabes who will punt out content for a tin of beans and a day off from having to blow tramps under the arches. The sort of people who disappeared from TV but crop up once in a while in the most desperate of TV slots for the purpose of being being ridiculed.
So the picture that begins to build here is that if you look at the structure of some of these raffles and apply the industry costs to get them away there is no profit for the operator unless their is no prize to be won.
And even if there is a profit for the operator it won’t be much more than 10% of the value of the gross revenue. For example, you have a £5k watch and you sell £10k of tickets (on such small prizes the minimum mark up is 100% but it is also the max. Much smaller than £5k goods and the legitimate model breaks). Half of that £10k goes to the winner. And potentially the other half goes to the promoter. The operator will jiggle the numbers so he is left with something but here is the critical human aspect: it takes an extremely honest man to run a gambling operation where he is raising £10k into his own account then paying out £4.5k to a ‘winner’ and £4.5k to a promoter and leaving himself £1k which he then needs to cover other operational costs and taxes out of before paying himself his reward for doing all the work.
All you need to do is simply ask yourself how likely such an event is? Well, you’re a gambler so you can see from the outset that we are looking at extremely long odds here.
The operator is going to want to be earning at least as much as the promoter. So it’s really easy to work out where that extra money needs to come from.
My understanding is that some of the popular car raffle sites (we've had some winners here) already had significant social media following prior to them starting the raffles, i.e. they were popular car pages on Facebook with many 1000s of followers. That's the sort of thing needed to get these up and running.
The 4 in particular I'm thinking of have 138k, 75k, 52k and 43k followers, so I don't think the promotional costs are anywhere near what it would have been costing the house raffle companies, certainly no print/TV advertising required. They do all hammer Facebook ads, but a few hundred quid a month on that wouldn't seem to be an issue if they are turning over multiple vehicles per week.
The 4 in particular I'm thinking of have 138k, 75k, 52k and 43k followers, so I don't think the promotional costs are anywhere near what it would have been costing the house raffle companies, certainly no print/TV advertising required. They do all hammer Facebook ads, but a few hundred quid a month on that wouldn't seem to be an issue if they are turning over multiple vehicles per week.
ch37 said:
My understanding is that some of the popular car raffle sites (we've had some winners here) already had significant social media following prior to them starting the raffles, i.e. they were popular car pages on Facebook with many 1000s of followers. That's the sort of thing needed to get these up and running.
The 4 in particular I'm thinking of have 138k, 75k, 52k and 43k followers, so I don't think the promotional costs are anywhere near what it would have been costing the house raffle companies, certainly no print/TV advertising required. They do all hammer Facebook ads, but a few hundred quid a month on that wouldn't seem to be an issue if they are turning over multiple vehicles per week.
Correct. They also have the repeat business aspect which is the only way to generate a profitable customer. If you download BoTB’s accounts you can get an idea of their marketing spend. It’s still very big. The 4 in particular I'm thinking of have 138k, 75k, 52k and 43k followers, so I don't think the promotional costs are anywhere near what it would have been costing the house raffle companies, certainly no print/TV advertising required. They do all hammer Facebook ads, but a few hundred quid a month on that wouldn't seem to be an issue if they are turning over multiple vehicles per week.
But what I am highlighting is the gulf between firms like BoTB and the random social media raffles. It costs a lot to do this legitimately and even when done legitimately the operator is taking home the smaller percentage. This is why mostnof the new ones aren’t going to be close to legitimate and why the bulk will just be pocketing the punter cash for themselves.
Those follower numbers are very small though. You’ll be getting very few conversions from those. Not enough to sustain any kind of legitimate model.
Light regulation, poor enforcement, no real penalties and a way to get retail punters to simply send you money to a non ring fenced account.
ch37 said:
My understanding is that some of the popular car raffle sites (we've had some winners here) already had significant social media following prior to them starting the raffles, i.e. they were popular car pages on Facebook with many 1000s of followers. That's the sort of thing needed to get these up and running.
A FB page I used to follow, (was car related memes) suddenly last week changed it's name and became one of these s
t raffles. Nearly all the comments to this page were "OK, but I'm unfollowing you guys now"
I did the same. I assume that's killed their brand and probably not netted as much as they hoped.
iacabu said:
I don't think any of the larger competition sites are scams as some people may think.
Like I said, I'm a winner myself and have absolutely no affiliation to any of them.
Congratulations. At least the chap in the camouflage pyjama bottoms won’t have any trouble hitching home Like I said, I'm a winner myself and have absolutely no affiliation to any of them.
CS Garth said:
Congratulations. At least the chap in the camouflage pyjama bottoms won’t have any trouble hitching home
I don't think he needs a lift, he bought a Range Rover SVR off the back of running Elite Competitions and now seems to spend half his day streaming Call of DutyS1KRR said:
ch37 said:
My understanding is that some of the popular car raffle sites (we've had some winners here) already had significant social media following prior to them starting the raffles, i.e. they were popular car pages on Facebook with many 1000s of followers. That's the sort of thing needed to get these up and running.
A FB page I used to follow, (was car related memes) suddenly last week changed it's name and became one of these s
t raffles. Nearly all the comments to this page were "OK, but I'm unfollowing you guys now"
I did the same. I assume that's killed their brand and probably not netted as much as they hoped.
Edited by iacabu on Saturday 18th July 09:36
Given you can “buy” an SVR for a bag of sand a month I’m not sure this signals massive success to me.
Looking at the various websites I see you can buy tickets for cars and the other aspirational trinkets of the masses alongside vacuums and Ring doorbells. It’s sad.
If you’re attempting to make money from people who can’t afford a ring doorbell and are too thick to appraise their chances of success then it’s a somewhat parasitic model.
Looking at trust pilot reviews (obviously nearly all positive) the amount of 1 post 5 star reviews is massive. Do people seriously believe this st? I’d say unless it’s independently audited by someone reliable it’s all somewhat dubious at best.
Looking at the various websites I see you can buy tickets for cars and the other aspirational trinkets of the masses alongside vacuums and Ring doorbells. It’s sad.
If you’re attempting to make money from people who can’t afford a ring doorbell and are too thick to appraise their chances of success then it’s a somewhat parasitic model.
Looking at trust pilot reviews (obviously nearly all positive) the amount of 1 post 5 star reviews is massive. Do people seriously believe this s
t? I’d say unless it’s independently audited by someone reliable it’s all somewhat dubious at best. CS Garth said:
Do people seriously believe this st?
Yes. By the bucket load. And the really amazing aspect is that even when they don’t they still talk themselves into going for it. t? As a nation we have always had quite a significant gambling problem. It is part of the cultural DNA but in the last two decades it has been weaponised and turbocharged by the meteoric rise in aspirational lifestyles beyond what the income can sustain and the access to easy consumer debt to facilitate those desires.
We haven’t changed. When we were younger our peers or even ourselves were prone to stupid thinking but we didn’t have the money with which to act on our silly thoughts and nor were we chased everywhere we went from the toilet to the office by intensely invasive adverts slowly chipping away at our common sense.
What does make me angry is that there is absolutely no need to cheat people in the UK. You can run a 100% legitimate gaming business in the UK and be profitable.
DonkeyApple said:
Stuff
Historically, all the house raffles failed because you would need to spend more than the value of the property in marketing spend to attract enough buyers. They also fail because they are the wrong product for the UK gambling audience. Note how gaming sites typically use a woman with big knockers on TV at a time when any blokes still awake are drastically likely to be drunk.. Trying to sell expensive tickets to a charming house in the country isn’t hitting the right notes for the gambling community and without them on board you will fail. You can’t sell to non gamblers in enough numbers or cost effectively.
More interesting stuff
What do you think has changed, because the house raffles don't seem to be failing now. I've seen three house raffles award the house (out of the three running at the time) already this year. Two in the country and one in London.Historically, all the house raffles failed because you would need to spend more than the value of the property in marketing spend to attract enough buyers. They also fail because they are the wrong product for the UK gambling audience. Note how gaming sites typically use a woman with big knockers on TV at a time when any blokes still awake are drastically likely to be drunk.
. Trying to sell expensive tickets to a charming house in the country isn’t hitting the right notes for the gambling community and without them on board you will fail. You can’t sell to non gamblers in enough numbers or cost effectively.More interesting stuff
I don't see any of those places appealing to the gambling community - whatever that is. There are a vast number of people who gamble on the lottery, scratchcards, win a telly, This Morning text comps to win £50K or a Range Rover. I don't think the majority are 'gamblers' in the sense of the gambling community. They are just people that like a flutter. No different to me putting £2 in a fruit machine on impulse. I expect to lose it. Every other year I might win £10 and I am chuffed.
Aside from my question, my point sort of being, there are millions like me, we're not mugs and we're not being exploited.
Edited by Taylor James on Saturday 18th July 10:52
Edited by Taylor James on Saturday 18th July 10:54
Taylor James said:
What do you think has changed, because the house raffles don't seem to be failing now. I've seen three house raffles award the house (out of the three running at the time) already this year. Two in the country and one in London.
I don't see any of those places appealing to the gambling community - whatever that is. There are a vast number of people who gamble on the lottery, scratchcards, win a telly, This Morning text comps to win £50K or a Range Rover. I don't think the majority are 'gamblers' in the sense of the gambling community. They are just people that like a flutter. No different to me putting £2 in a fruit machine on impulse. I expect to lose it. Every other year I might win £10 and I am chuffed.
Aside from my question, my point sort of being, there are millions like me, we're not mugs and we're not being exploited.
Marketing has changed. Typical house raffles were marketed by email campaigns and getting the newspapers to publish ‘stories’. It’s now moved forward and is using the proper forms of media to reach buyers. I don't see any of those places appealing to the gambling community - whatever that is. There are a vast number of people who gamble on the lottery, scratchcards, win a telly, This Morning text comps to win £50K or a Range Rover. I don't think the majority are 'gamblers' in the sense of the gambling community. They are just people that like a flutter. No different to me putting £2 in a fruit machine on impulse. I expect to lose it. Every other year I might win £10 and I am chuffed.
Aside from my question, my point sort of being, there are millions like me, we're not mugs and we're not being exploited.
Edited by Taylor James on Saturday 18th July 10:52
Edited by Taylor James on Saturday 18th July 10:54
Having a flutter is the key. The gambling community isn’t just bookie addicts but a very diverse range and throughout the whole of the UK. The key is that when having a flutter you are buying a period of happiness and fun for a very small amount of money. For example, a £20 dream house raffle ticket buys several months of happy thoughts. In terms of general consumption the spend offers really good value for money.
The rise in problem gambling is arguably linked to the rise in lifestyle desperation and the hope of a quick fix etc.
I live near Keighley, and considering the amount of 'entrepenuers' around here who seem to win cars, it certainly stands out as unusual.
Maybe people round here just really want to win a nice car and play a lot.
Maybe these car competition companies are being used (unknowingly) as a laundering tool. Buy 50k of tickets with dirty money to turn it into a clean £40k car won legitimately off a "random" £11.50 ticket.
Maybe some of the companies are bent.
I dunno, but something stinks.
Maybe people round here just really want to win a nice car and play a lot.
Maybe these car competition companies are being used (unknowingly) as a laundering tool. Buy 50k of tickets with dirty money to turn it into a clean £40k car won legitimately off a "random" £11.50 ticket.
Maybe some of the companies are bent.
I dunno, but something stinks.
0ddball said:
I live near Keighley, and considering the amount of 'entrepenuers' around here who seem to win cars, it certainly stands out as unusual.
Maybe people round here just really want to win a nice car and play a lot.
Maybe these car competition companies are being used (unknowingly) as a laundering tool. Buy 50k of tickets with dirty money to turn it into a clean £40k car won legitimately off a "random" £11.50 ticket.
Maybe some of the companies are bent.
I dunno, but something stinks.
Since you can't buy tickets with cash and only through a credit or debit card it wouldn't be the most obvious laundering tool. I suppose the car could be bought with dirty money and you do it that way? Maybe people round here just really want to win a nice car and play a lot.
Maybe these car competition companies are being used (unknowingly) as a laundering tool. Buy 50k of tickets with dirty money to turn it into a clean £40k car won legitimately off a "random" £11.50 ticket.
Maybe some of the companies are bent.
I dunno, but something stinks.
ghost83 said:
I played about 2 month ago and got very close to the point that I keep winning little bits of credit every week, this week I won 9.28 which is what was spent out of winnings last week, and again I got very close to the centre!
Haven’t played my credit this week as it looks quite a hard image!
So currently got £9.28 sat there waiting It would be a nice thought to have won the urus and 20k although I’d have taken the cash and paid my mortgage off!
Whilst ever they keep giving me credit back I’ll keep playing
If there was no money back but entry was £9.28 cheaper, would you feel any different?Haven’t played my credit this week as it looks quite a hard image!
So currently got £9.28 sat there waiting It would be a nice thought to have won the urus and 20k although I’d have taken the cash and paid my mortgage off!
Whilst ever they keep giving me credit back I’ll keep playing
The Mad Monk said:
StrawberryBurst said:
A whole load of stuff about BOTB
What's BOTB?If you don't like it, don't have anything to do with it.
Have I missed anything?
Go and blockade the big bookies if you want to white knight gambling or highlight the absolutely crazy odds of winning a National Lottery prize. They could pillory This Morning for all their '£2.50 text 123 to win this suitcase full of cash' or lobby Bet365 about their owner's salary, but no, let's get all frothy over £2 for an Allegro ticket. Sad, sad cases.
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