Lets say you win a new car

aircooled said:

I also used to know someone who won an MTV (it's this channel that used to show music videos.. people thought it was boss) contest for a futuristic electric car... build from a Fiero (yes it was a while ago).  It even had solar panels on the roof (likely provided a float charge at best).  He said, much to their surprise, he wanted the car.  The car was apparently, as you can imagine, rather a big turd.  I don't remember what the end result was, but I suspect it was some cash.

Oh god, one of those was for sale in Kansas like 2 hours from me! I tried getting more info on it, and the seller refused to tell me! Now I know why!

god I love GRM

bigdaddylee82 said:

Y'all mentioning the McDonald's Monopoly game, it 100% was a scam for years, involved an ex-cop in charge of security, some mafia, and some Mormons.  I think the article I read about this was on the Daily Beast some years ago, but it's behind a paywall now.  It seems that HBO has a documentary about the scandal coming out next month though.  I thought it was a pretty intriguing story.

IIRC, it wasn't so much that the game itself was a scam, rather than the chief of security was exploiting his position to steal the winning stamps.

aircooled said:

McMillions, the documentary has been out for about a year.  Some pretty wild stuff in it.  The initial FBI agent is particularly entertaining.

It brings up the interesting issue of: if you have access to a lot of illegally won prizes, how do you take advantage of that without making it clear you are winning all of them.

I guess it is 2021 now isn't it?

The answer is to win the car in Canada.  Lottery winnings are not taxable here.

In reply to Woody (Forum Supportum) :

Nope.  Just saw contests and became curious

Worth noting, the Omaze raffles usually include enough extra cash to pay taxes on the prize.  They also specify the cash option in the raffle description.  I've actually bought a few raffle tickets when the proceeds were going to a charity i support.  I generally don't pay to enter raffles unless I have a personal connect.

 The only reason I bought the O-maze raffle tickets were because the cars were interesting enough that I enjoyed a few minutes thinking about if I'd really take the car instead of the cash prize.  Turbo bmw 2002ti +$20k, or $100k in cash. 

aircooled said:

One of the worst thing that can happen to a gambling addict is to win big.

...and early.

I read a study that investigated commonalities among people with gambling addictions and winning big and early in their gambling experience was the number one correlate.

Sad right, spending the rest of your life trying to replicate that early experience.

Here's how to never lose when gambling...

1.  Observe the cocktail waitresses traffic pattern.

2.  Sit at a higher value machine (slots, video poker, whatever, it doesn't matter) that's positioned conveniently for one of the waitresses (this is your mark).

3.  Loiter until she passes by and then throw some money away (put it in the machine) and express displeasure at your loss.

4.  Get some free beer (or whatever you like) and tip her very well.

5.  Subtract the tips from the commercial value of the beverages including normal tips and throw no more money than that away.

Can't lose but in my youth while using my method, I asked for a premium beer and the waitress said "Sir, this section gets domestic beer" which resulted in the addition of Rule #2.  

In reply to Patientzero :

Just kinda did it again.  Google tapkat Episcopal ressurectionlongwood to see what I done.  They didn't sell enough tickets to give the car away but I get half of the ticket sale $, approx. $27K.  Now,here comes the good part.  The dealer has the car which I have the right to buy for sticker price of approx $87K.  I can take the $27K plus my own $ and buy the car, do a fly & drive, keep it for a few months and should be able to sell it for significantly more than I pay.  

So at one of the places I used to work the company would sponsor a March of Dimes annual event.  The grand prize for employees was a new vehicle purchased from a dealer we were a suppliers to (Toyota, Honda, Kia, Hyundai, Ford, GM, FCA) valued at $30k or less plus cash for state sales tax AND the value of the income tax at the company's median income. All in all it was like a $35k prize. 

Every year they did this. The same 150 people participated out of 2000. 2 years out of six the same lady in shipping bought Dodge Darts at no where near the $30k. I never understood it. 

QuasiMofo (John Brown) said:

So at one of the places I used to work the company would sponsor a March of Dimes annual event.  The grand prize for employees was a new vehicle purchased from a dealer we were a suppliers to (Toyota, Honda, Kia, Hyundai, Ford, GM, FCA) valued at $30k or less plus cash for state sales tax AND the value of the income tax at the company's median income. All in all it was like a $35k prize. 

Every year they did this. The same 150 people participated out of 2000. 2 years out of six the same lady in shipping bought Dodge Darts at no where near the $30k. I never understood it. 

Read this to my wife. 
 

Me: crappy car.

Her: yes, but she likes it. 

Me: she must have, she bought two of them. Of course, being crappy has nothing to do with whether she liked it.
Look at people's relationships. 
 

In reply to M2Pilot :

Are all of these that you won the kind of contest that sells a limited quantity of tickets? That sounds like some good fortune!

In reply to OHSCrifle :

Range Rover was a sweepstakes with free entries. Could enter once a day and the sweeps ran for around 2 months.  I was told that there were over 300K entries of  which I entered 54 times.  The M235 was from the BMWCCA Foundation and sold a limited number of tickets, I don't remember how many.  The Corvette was a tapkat promotion & sold unlimited number of tickets, although they didn't sell enough to award the car.

Saratoga Auto Museum is raffling a Taycan. (Wally already bought the winner ticket)

I'm told the Dealer would buy the car back, it's $135k.

My wife wins a lot of radio call-in contests. Gift certificates, event tickets, etc.

The local oldies station several years ago gave away a Nash Metropolitan.  The one prize both of us wanted really badly. I was actually surprised when she wasn't the winner.

In reply to 914Driver :

A Porsche raffle that looks good to me is the one Asheville Symphony is having.  $150 per ticket, selling only 999 tickets, prize is a Macan S plus 31.58%  of the value of the prize, which I figure comes to about $100K for car plus cash.  Total take by Symphony is $148.5K if all tickets are sold so that makes it better than a 50:50 raffle.  Car will be awarded if as few as 660 tickets are sold but they seem to sell out every year.   Ends of June 25.

M2Pilot said:

In reply to 914Driver :

A Porsche raffle that looks good to me is the one Asheville Symphony is having.  $150 per ticket, selling only 999 tickets, prize is a Macan S plus 31.58%  of the value of the prize, which I figure comes to about $100K for car plus cash.  Total take by Symphony is $148.5K if all tickets are sold so that makes it better than a 50:50 raffle.  Car will be awarded if as few as 660 tickets are sold but they seem to sell out every year.   Ends of June 25.

My question is: if you don't win, can you write off the price of the ticket as a charitable contribution?  Always wondered about that, never cared enough to try.

In reply to jb229 :

In the rules, most raffles will note whether or nor purchase price is tax deductible.  I expect lots of folks list ticket purchases from charities as contributions.  I have seen a few dinner/raffle tickets that state that $X of the price is tax deductible.

In reply to M2Pilot :

Do you wanna go halves on a lottery ticket?

I miss Iceracer.

I didn't know he wasn't around anymore. Bummer. 

In reply to M2Pilot :

i don't recall the disposition of the RR.  did you sell it?

One of the posts in original RR thread cracked me up because of the obvious answer.  Post said "how can the neighbors one-up each other if they all drive the same car?"

To me, the obvious answer would have been for you to sell your RR to one of those neighbors in Dubai.  Probably nobody had 2 of them.  ;-)

In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter)

I drove the RR for about a year & sold it for high wholesale price & bought some tesla stock with part of the procedes.  Unfortunately I didn't buy enough Tesla stock & sold what I had bought too soon to become rich from it.

All in all, after paying taxes, title & registration fees, insurance, & tithing, I ended up making about $125 a day for driving the car a year.