• el_muerte@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    I was at a LAN party about twenty years ago put together by a buddy. Roughly a hundred people, and my friend really went all out getting sponsors for it - I think some of them may have been under the impression there’d be about five times the number of people present, because there was a lot of stuff - not counting cheap swag, we had prizes for three or four tourneys plus about a dozen draws. I won a pretty high end CPU/mobo combo.

    Most valuable prize was a copy of Maya; think it was worth about $6000 at the time. The company that donated it stipulated it go to someone with an interest in 3D modeling so rather than a random draw, everyone who was interested faced off in a rock, paper, scissors elimination. I made it to the final round and lost - my opponent psyched me out saying “Rock always wins,” I threw scissors, he won with rock.

  • mts711@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    I actually won twice.

    The first time was on a radio show and I won two tickets to see the first Ice Age film.

    The second time was recently, I won a youtube giveaway, and I won a painting. The guy was asking so much for shipping that I stopped replying.

  • eezeebee@lemmy.ca
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    3 months ago

    I wrote to the show Video & Arcade Top 10 and they sent me a copy of Super Mario 64.

  • MimicJar@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Yes, when I was much younger I won 2nd place in a Diablo II fan site giveaway. You had to answer 5 difficult trivia questions about Diablo II to be entered into a drawing and my name was selected second, so second place.

    Unfortunately, I never received my prize. The prize was shipped to the wrong state, they used the wrong two letter abbreviation. If I recall correctly the city & street was a valid address in the other state. I tried to contact the organizers and the post office (obviously they couldn’t help) but it never planned out.

    I think my prize would have been a small Diablo figurine.

  • DUMBASS@leminal.space
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    3 months ago

    I once won a 5kg Toblerone bar (picture below for reference). I used to really like Toblerone, one of my top 5 chocolate bars, untill I won that one, I couldn’t give it away to people, we had one block left that we let our “pet” mouse eat and even he bailed on it.

    If you really really like something, don’t try and win a large amount of it, you will hate it by the end.

      • el_muerte@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        That’s why I hate when anyone says, “Find a way to get paid for your hobby and you’ll never work a day in your life.” No, all that does is ruin a fella’s passion for something.

    • .Donuts@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      we had one block left that we let our “pet” mouse eat and even he bailed on it.

      I mean, chocolate is toxic to mice so that would make sense

  • jasep@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I won a radio call in contest which made me “brewmaster for a day” at a large brewery. Not only was it a pretty cool day, it also came with a bunch of swag and $1000 prize.

  • Lazycog@sopuli.xyz
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    3 months ago

    I’ve tried to participate in so many giveaways and lotteries and never won anything. I believe that’s my superpower: lose against the odds.

  • sturlabragason@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I once won on the /r/millionairemakers raffle. I didn’t get a million 😅 but so many wonderful people sent donations with awesome heartfelt messages. It was really nice.

  • lime!@feddit.nu
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    3 months ago

    a ps4, sorta.

    this is gonna sound weird but giveaways used to be illegal here. there have been laws about lotteries since the 1300s, and in the 1700s the king decided that lotteries needed to have his personal stamp of approval or they were illegal. this has been changed and churned over the years but as it last stood, even temporary lotteries needed to have a license to operate from the local government. this also meant that only the state was allowed to run casinos. weird, i know. this only changed in 2019, at which point we got inundated with commercials for online casinos and the part of our healthcare system that deals with gambling addictions instantly collapsed.

    anyway, to get around the need to seek a lottery license, giveaways usually had an “utslagsfråga”, an elimination question. this way the person managing the giveaway can show that there was some skill involved in the selection process, which makes it a contest and not a lottery. so technically i won a contest for a ps4, not a giveaway.