From lotteries and raffles to taking part in a quiz, everyone loves a competition. What’s more, they can come with phenomenal, life-changing prizes. However, not every competition winner gets to walk away with a fortune or a boat. For some, the prizes are a bit more… unusual.

Few contests are quite as strange as the world wife-carrying contest. Competitors come from around the world to compete in a race where, as the name suggests, a male competitor is tasked with carrying their female teammate through a special obstacle course, including a water obstacle which is at least one metre deep.

As befits such a bizarre competition, the prize is pretty unique too: the winner get the ‘wife’s’ weight in beer as their reward. The minimum weight of the wife is 49kg (108lbs). Competitors with a 'wife' that’s lighter than that have to wear a weighted backpack to make up the difference.

Earlier this year, Donna Pirie announced she was holding a competition requiring competitors to complete a Christmas-themed crossword. The prize on offer isn’t what you’d typically get from a crossword though: one lucky winner will bag Pirie’s home, a $2.2 million (£1.7m) Georgian mansion with its own nine-hole golf course and helicopter landing pad.

Entrants have to send in $33 (£25) alongside their completed crossword, with Pirie saying she is hoping to raise $1.3 million (£1m) for charity. As well as the property, which is in Laurencekirk, Scotland, the winner will enjoy a housekeeper, groundsmen and utility bills paid for a year.

Running for political office can be pretty expensive, but generally would-be politicians turn to traditional fundraising means to cover their campaigns. Not Gustavo Rojas, who in 2010 ran for a spot on Venezuela’s National Assembly. And he organised a raffle where the winner would get the somewhat odd prize of breast implants.

Rojas was unconcerned about criticism from feminists, telling Reuters: “The raffle is a financing mechanism, nothing else. It’s the doctor who will do the operation, not me. When someone raffles a TV, some people think it’s a good TV but others don’t like it. It’s the same. I‘m not showing disrespect to anyone.”

Cristiano Ronaldo is one of the world’s most wealthy footballers. The Real Madrid star earned a whopping $250 million (£191m) in 2015 – that’s $8 (£6) a second! He is also one of the most renowned, breaking countless goalscoring records for club and country. In 2015 he decided to run a raffle to raise money for charities which support struggling Haiti, with the somewhat bizarre first prize including the chance to have a haircut with the great man.

The prize included flights for two people to Madrid, accommodation for three nights at a four-star hotel, a pre-game meal and haircut with Ronaldo, and then two VIP tickets for the El Classico clash between Real Madrid and Barcelona. David Belle, CEO of the charity Artists for Peace and Justice, said that entrants would have the chance “to spend an incredible day as [Ronaldo’s] best friend”.

A stunning resort on the small island of Kosrae in Micronesia was raffled off by its owners, Doug and Sally Beitz, in 2016. The couple wanted to hand over the 16-room lodge they had set up on the island 20 years beforehand. Tens of thousands of tickets were sold across the world for the prize draw, which was broadcast live on Facebook.

The island resort was won by Josh Ptasznyk, a tax accountant aged 26, and his friend Nick, a 25-year-old financial planner, both from Wollongong in Australia. The pair had spent AUS$129 (around US$99/£75) on three tickets for the draw, which raised around AUS $4 million (US$3m/£2.3m) in total.

Everyone knows that getting married is expensive, but ending a marriage can be just as pricey. Hayley Wakenshaw from Newcastle, England won $2,370 (£1,800) to go towards reducing the legal fees of her divorce when she bagged the top prize in a competition from MaritalAffair.co.uk back in 2012.

The site described itself as “a dating arena for those looking for adult dating and extra-marital relations”, and its competition attracted almost 200 entries. Paul Graham, managing director of MaritalAffair.co.uk, said: “It’s wonderful to think we’ve changed someone’s life for the better by freeing them from the shackles of the often-unaffordable divorce process.”

Leslie and Paul Spell, goat farmers in Alabama, USA, decided that they wanted to move to Costa Rica in order to teach the missionaries there how to keep goats. As a result, they wanted to hand their existing farm over to someone, so launched an essay competition. All entrants had to do was write 200 words on why they were the best person to continue the “farmstead goat cheese tradition”. Oh, and send $150 (£114) as well.

Sadly, as the contest didn’t garner the required 2,500 entries, nobody won the Humble Heart Farms Goat Dairy & Creamery. Everyone who entered did get their money back, with Paul Spell saying: “I’d thought for sure this would work. We didn’t get even close.”

In 2012 the Ben Siegel Reptile Store in Florida, USA held a bug-eating competition, with the winner receiving an ivory ball python worth $850 (£650). The contest attracted more than 30 competitors who downed worms and cockroaches.

The contest took a tragic turn though, when winner Eddie Archbold collapsed in front of the store shortly afterwards. He was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital, with tests later confirming that he had died of “asphyxia due to choking and aspiration of gastric contents”.

The human body is an incredible thing, but it is not often on offer as the prize in a competition. Yet that’s what taxidermy website The Weird & Wonderful attempted to do back in 2014, offering a genuine human skull as a prize in a competition to celebrate its first birthday.

The competition, which cost $1.30 (£1) to enter, was eventually scrapped following complaints. Blogger Jake McGowan-Lowe, a bone collector, was one of those who complained, saying: “Humans are not prizes, alive or dead. We should handle human remains with care, and respect, and if we give them to someone else, we should make sure the next person is going to treat them with care and respect as well.”