How to win cash from competitions
Is it worth entering hundreds of competitions to win a few small prizes?
Sections
FInding competitions
There are dozens of websites which list competitions. Many of them are very similar and require registration, but we like Loquax.co.uk and ThePrizeFinder.com, the latter because it gives you the option of excluding Facebook and Twitter competitions from listings.
Picking the right ones to enter
Considering how many thousands of competitions there are, this certainly seems plausible. Most of these competitions can't have all that many entrants, which means if you're good at targeting competitions with fewer competitors, you're more likely to win.
Experienced compers recommend less desirable prizes (so no cars and holidays) and lower-profile places (so not daytime TV programmes or national newspapers). In our experience, local newspaper can potentially be a good source of prizes.
And competitions that require you to send in a postal entry or buy a product generally attract fewer entrants, as do those that require a greater element of skill, such as taking a photo, creating a video or writing a caption. Lower-value prizes also don't attract as many people.
Automation
There are websites offering automated entry to hundreds of competitions, but they will cost you and they don't necessarily improve your chances of winning. How many thousands of others enter the same competitions automatically? It's the competitions with lower accessibility that are more likely to reward the time you spend. You also run the risk of disqualification.
One way to save time is to have your address details saved in a Word or Notepad document so you can just copy and paste them into entry forms.
Time versus reward
For all the hype on the comping websites, the users seem to win relatively small, albeit with reasonable frequency if they're determined enough. The problem is compounded because, in the UK unlike in many countries, most competitions aren't obliged to display the chances of winning.
Is this right for you?
If you are going to give this a go, why not keep track of how long you spend on this over a month or two versus your winnings (and the costs you incur, if any)? If you're not winning anything, or not winning much for the time you're putting in, consider your alternatives.
You may find the odds of improving your finances will be higher if you spend all those hours working harder to get a payrise or a promotion, or developing your skills or learning new ones.
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Comments
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I entered the e-on Energy Great Saves online competition almost every day last season, where the prizes were 4 tickets to a Football League or FA Cup match of your preference from a fairly large selection. I believe that through the regularity of my entries, I won 4 sets of tickets to each of FIVE Championship matches, and topped it with four tickets at £93 each to the FA Cup Final! What a season, and being a lover of football in general, the Cup Final was a fantastic end of season bonus. The Portsmouth supporters were different class, and deserve for their club to get out of the mire. Sorry about that sporting diversion from the subject, anyway, I calculate that e-on provided me with around £900 worth of complimentary tickets. Unfortunately they are not this season's sponsors, and N-Power have taken over with a pathetic offer to their customers which will certainly not tempt me to change my energy supplier.
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Thanks stu-b, it's great to have someone share their real experiences. [i]"I've been trying this since the start of August after reading a similar article."[/i] That makes me feel very unoriginal. Neil
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I've been trying this since the start of August after reading a similar article. I have entered approximately 1,300 competitions this month, spending on average 90 minutes per day. From that I have won 4 competitions - 2 small prizes, worth about £50 to £60 each, and 2 larger prizes including a trip to San Francisco and £2500 in cash. I record everything I enter in a spreadsheet and use a form filling extension in my browser which speeds things up. I suspect I've been considerably lucky so far and that not every month will bring in such a haul but I'm going to keep this going for another couple of months to see how things go.
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01 September 2010