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Do You Ever...


Razors Edge

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...enter a "sweepstakes" or "give-away"?

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Got an e-mail from Specialized saying "Win a trip to Paris-Roubaix!!" which I thought would be a nice prize :D  Of course, you read the e-mail and it is "PURCHASE a Roubaix in the next couple months, REGISTER that new bike, and then you have a chance of winning the trip" sort of nonsense.  Luckily, I realize they need a "no purchase necessary" clause, and wandering through the legalese and other nonsense, I found:

4. ALTERNATE METHOD OF ENTRY: To enter without purchasing or registering a Specialized Roubaix road bike, on a 3” x 5” card or piece of paper, hand-print your full name, complete address, phone number (with area code), date of birth and email address, and mail it to: Specialized “The Cobbles are Calling” Sweepstakes, Free To Enter, attn: Dillon Hollinger, Specialized Bicycle Components, Inc., 15130 Concord Circle, Morgan Hill, CA 95037. Requests must be postmarked by March 16, 2020 and received no later than March 20, 2020 to be considered.

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Do you suppose any of the 3X5 cards have ever got picked in any of the contests that allow that? It’s easy when you reach into the barrel to tell the difference just by touch between a 3X5 card and a proper entry form. That is if they even make it to the barrel? I wonder if anyone ever investigates these contests to see even if they actually even give out these big prizes they advertise? :dontknow:

Back when I occasionally watched tv with my wife they would announce the winner of the Publishers Clearinghouse hundred and fifty Brazilian dollar prize and it was always some obnoxious jerk. Did he really win that money or was he an actor that they paid $5,000 to pretend he won it? How does a magazine clearinghouse even come up with 150 Brazilian dollars every year? Now they don’t give out large amounts on that giveaway, they just give $5,000 a month for life and if they are running short of cash they just make a hit. Another suicide. I won’t say where they learned that trick because it would get this thread locked.

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2 minutes ago, Longjohn said:

Do you suppose any of the 3X5 cards have ever got picked in any of the contests that allow that? It’s easy when you reach into the barrel to tell the difference just by touch between a 3X5 card and a proper entry form. That is if they even make it to the barrel? I wonder if anyone ever investigates these contests to see even if they actually even give out these big prizes they advertise? 

I'd guess "no" across the board, BUT I have to wonder about how many Roubaix's are bought AND registered in this window of time. It can't be many (thousands???), so odds will be pretty good relative to the regular "e-mail" for entry sort of thing.

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I do once in a while. I’ve never won a grand prize, but I have received an ok consolation prize from time to time. 
A few years ago, Cadillac was a big sponsor of the Tour de France broadcast. They had a promo In a magazine to test drive a CTS and get a free cycling jersey. I figured even if it was a scam, hey! Free test drive! But they filled out the form at the dealership with whatever code was needed. A few weeks later, I got a very nice jersey! I still wear it regularly. 

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I do, but mostly fantasy football and March Madness College Basketball.

Several years ago, NBC had a $250,000 pick-em free game to promote Sunday Night Football.  There must have been 1,000,000 entries.

But, with 3 weeks left in the regular season, I was in 3rd place!  But there was only 1 prize and I knew that if I was going to surpass the two people in front of me, I'd have to pick some long-shots or else I'd be getting the same scores are those two.  I ended up in something like 90th place.  But the experience showed me anyone can win.

A few years back, the NFL instituted the NFL.com Playoff Challenge where you picked 8 players each week and got 2x, 3x, and 4x their weekly fantasy scores if you repeated picked a same player each week.  I realized that if the Patriots had a Wild Card Week bye, it would still pay to pick Brady, Gronkowski, etc. the first week even though they'd get ZERO for the wild card week, because I'd get 2x, 3x, and 4x their scores in the next three rounds. So I solely picked players from the two teams I thought would be in the Super Bowl. People with poor math skills, in the comments section, mocked me saying, "Who's the idiot picking players that don't even play in the Wild Card Round?"  I lost by tiebreaker points an all-epxenses-paid trip for two to the next Superbowl plus $750 in spending money plus sitting at the game plus dinner with a current or former NFL player and his guest.

Note that here, I picked losers in 3 of the 4 Wild Card Games, so I'm certainly not clairvoyant - but I still have a chance, so it's worth the effort.

This year, I picked all Ravens and 49ers except I didn't think either side would get much out of wide receivers except the 49er's Samuel Deebo, so I picked the Saints Michael Thomas as my 2nd WR thinking he'd play 3 rounds.  The Vikings upset the Saints so I'm probably going to lose even if it's the Ravens vs 49ers in the Super Bowl as I - and the Las Vegas bookies - think most likely.

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My Lynskey is a lottery bike from a magazine cancer fundraiser.   I did not win it but the fellow that did was too big for the frame.   He contacted Lynskey who said he could get a new frame at cost.  I paid for the one that didn't fit him for the "cost" price of $380.   Here it is as spec'd by Speedgoat.

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Of course, we stripped it and rebuilt it with my components.

 

 

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