
Women who win hundreds of sweepstakes per year - prostoalex
https://thehustle.co/biggest-sweepstakes-winners/
======
Mediterraneo10
If one compares the amount of money that most sweepers have made to the time
invested in the activity, then probably any minimum-wage job would have been
more worthwhile financially.

For the small amount of exceptionally successful sweepers, I still suspect
that the time lost, along with the additional burden of tax accounting, makes
this a pretty inefficient strategy financially. The exceptional ones are
showing effort and strategies that they could have instead applied to
traditional business and investment paths with a greater return.

~~~
redorb
old boss told me once - 'some people will work harder at not having a job than
they would at a job'

~~~
Retric
On average, _Coke enters around 300 online contests per month (about 10 hours’
worth of work) and wins £1k in prizes._

That's £100 per hour which is much better than most jobs. That's most likely a
statistical aberration, but if you assume the people they go back are also the
people that won in the first place it probably seems to be a winning strategy.

That's assuming people that go long streaks without winning then stop.

~~~
wisty
It also says she tuned it into a full time job, and talks about how it's
really hard work.

I suspect she's mistaken about how many hours she puts into it.

Maybe not. Maybe she just worked hard perfecting her skills and can make 100
pounds / hour, but is picking the most profitable opportunities. Some side
gigs are like that - you can make a huge hourly wage on something but only for
a few paid hours a month.

~~~
stordoff
I suspect the full-time job is actually her blog, rather than the contests per
se:

> The operator of a popular sweepstakes blog, she has made the hobby into a
> full-time job.

So far in 2019, she's won prizes equivalent to £5,389, or about the same as
working 110 hours/month at minimum wage[1]. Given that £2,000 worth (Majorca
trip) is tagged as "Group win", and most of it appears to be stuff you
couldn't sell at retail price, or just couldn't sell, I find it difficult to
call that a full-time job.

[1] (£5,389/6 months)/£8.21 an hour = 109 hours

~~~
anonymous5133
This is true. Reminds me of a somewhat popular youtuber who makes videos about
"side hustles." One of his "main" side hustle is operating vending machines.
He basically makes videos about how to operate your own vending machine
business and so on. The irony to it of course is that 98% of his "profit"
comes from youtube partner advertising. So he makes a few hundred bucks from
the vending business but pulls 10k-15k profit per month from youtbe ads. So
the real moral of the story here is don't waste your time doing a vending
machine biz, focus on making entertaining youtube videos.

~~~
jobigoud
I've also been convinced that this is how most the authors of "how to get
rich" books make their money. Not by applying their own teachings but by
selling them.

~~~
PopeDotNinja
In advice, I look for actionable details, leverage, and credibility? Is the
advice detailed enough that it can be turned into a plan without too much
work? Is the advice something that leads to gains that greatly exceed the
effort invested? Does the advice come from someone who knows their shit?

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Scaevolus
> Kohl’s gave out 1,000 $20 gift cards ($20k total), but the ad got 10,812
> retweets. According to an estimate from the data analytics company SumAll,
> the value of a branded retweet is $20.37. So for a cost of $20k, Kohl’s got
> roughly $220k in value — about 10x its investment.

There's _no way_ a retweet is worth $20-- or is this some weird power-law
effect?

~~~
scrollaway
A single retweet can be worth several tens of dollars under twitter's ad
program, depending on targeting. The pricing is really fucky.

Disclaimer: Twitter's ad program is atrociously bad.

~~~
XMPPwocky
who on earth retweets an ad, though?

~~~
maxaht
Exactly, which is why so many companies have transformed their professional
corporate accounts into "sassy" viral sensations. Wendy's is fast food burger
joint, but have millions of Twitter followers and high engagement because of
their unrelated humorous tweets. Ads are starting to look less and less like
ads every day.

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neilv
I was wondering why there would be publicizing of opportunities and tricks by
fierce competitors in a zero-sum game. I think it's not just community and/or
showing off, but part of the explanation is this:

> _They gather in forums like Sweepstakes Advantage, subscribe to newsletters
> like I Win Contests, SweepSheet, and Sweeping America, and gather at
> conventions all over the world._

I've seen this many times in other niches: you find or create a community,
actively pump it up, and sell them things (and/or sell them to others).

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wtvanhest
This seems like a submarine article to sell tickets to conferences or gather
people's information.

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WalterBright
Some students at Caltech were probably the first to do this, entering a
McDonald's sweepstakes millions of times.

[http://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/the_caltech_sweepstakes_...](http://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/the_caltech_sweepstakes_caper)

Some of the winnings were used to buy a nice TV set for the common room in the
dorm.

The stunt was parodied in the movie "Real Genius".

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tdxcbkifxx
Entering these online sweepstakes could be automated.

Looks like someone already did it for Twitter [https://www.hscott.net/twitter-
contest-winning-as-a-service/](https://www.hscott.net/twitter-contest-winning-
as-a-service/)

