General

I won 2 $1,000 scholarships from Magic: The Gathering tournaments when I was a teenager. They were for winning first place in two separate JSS (Junior Super Series) qualifiers. I also won 3 booster boxes for each win (one from the current set on the spot, and then 1 delivered to my house for the next 2 sets to release). My friend and I got to fly to Orlando for the main event that summer, it's a great memory for both of us.

For sweepstakes type prizes, the only one that really comes to mind is I won a Nintendo Switch with 3 games, directly from Nintendo. I entered on their site, forgot about it, then a few months later got an email saying I had won one of the grand prizes. I thought it was spam at first, but it was in fact legit.

When I was a kid, I won a coloring contest and got 6 tickets to the circus. There were 5 in my family, so I got to bring my best friend at the time. We got there early and they had a pizza party ready for us, and one of the clowns came to visit. I've always hated clowns, so I ignored him lol

I won another coloring contest and got The Little Mermaid on VHS. Yes, it was the one with the penis on the cover.

I won second prize in a beauty contest and collected $10.

I won tickets in 6th grade to see Moby, The Sneakerpimps, Cracker, Sponge, Naked, and a few other bands.

I won a twitter contest about a decade ago. It was from Harmonix and the prize was 100 free Rock Band songs. I think it was for Rock Band 3, but most DLC would play with RB1 and 2 at the time. They sent me 100 Microsoft codes worth $2 each. It was a good time.

I won the og Xbox from Taco Bell. Came with 4 controllers and whatever the 2 game packin combo was. This was before Halo came out, so I want to say Fusion Frenzy and... Alan Wake? Bloodwake? Can't remember.

A fish. A single fish from a pet store. I never went and picked it up. I've won various amounts of money from doing surveys & research projects for graduate students. The most I ever won from those was $300. Children's slippers. A diaper genie. A baby swing. A few children's toys. An area rug. I think that's it. Exciting.

I got the closest guess for the number of gumballs in a jar and won a cheap folding beach/sports chair. It's come in handy a few times.

And just this week my site had a block party with carnival-like games - I did the ring toss and won a lovely winter hat with a pompom and embroidered with my company's logo.

I've won a lot of small stuff from various giveaways: A Schleich Dragon Rider figure on Facebook. A trade paperback and 6 DC Bombshells action figures (2 different sweepstakes) from DC Comics. A $100 gift card to Half Price Books. A lure, fish filleting gloves, and other fishing equipment from some company.

I've won thousands of dollars worth of stuff from Coke Rewards between my account and my daughter's: A nice set of beats wireless headphones (est. $200 value). Many movie tickets and concessions to AMC as well as several sets of admission tickets to parks like Six Flags and King's Island. Last year my daughter's account won the top prize (worth about $3,500) in the Coke Studio giveaway that included two tickets to Austin City Limits Music Festival, a $500 Delta Airlines voucher, a $500 Airbnb voucher, and a $500 Uber gift card. A few years ago her account won a $5,000 Visa gift card, but they passed it to the next person because she didn't see the e-mail in time (they only gave her 48 hours to respond).

I've won a few things but that's why I still play lotto. Ive won some different amounts from the casino and walked away with about $500 after all was said and done. Won $250 a couple times playing the pick three on lotto for $0.50 each time. As a kid I had a Beta recorder so I desperately wanted a VHS VCR so I won a VHS player (didn't record) from my local video store. Also won Super Mario 3 in 1989 for NES when the movie the Wizard was going to come out and also won 4 passes to the 1990 Nintendo Championship in Chicago all from 94.7 Z95 radio station. My Dad took me and ex-friend to it and got our asses handed to us. Mostly playing games I had never played before.

Won grand prize in two Doritos sweeps:

This one was in 2014. This was the prize: District 13 prizes:

(5) Grand Prizes: Each winner will receive a trip to attend the premiere of the Movie currently anticipated to take place in Los Angeles, California. The trip consists of roundtrip coach airfare, 2 tickets to premier, hotel accommodations, ground transportation, and $1,200 spending money. The total ARV of the grand prize is $4,200.

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And this one in 2018. And this was my prize: A 2-night trip for two to Denver, CO to attend the 2018 Red Rocks concert

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Won a “Best letter to Santa” contest as a 6 year old kid and I didn’t even enter it myself, my teacher entered me. I said that Santa should leave my house until last so he could stop off at my house for a lay z boy chair, cheese burger, and glass of iced tea and a nap. They read my letter on the news and my entire family almost passed out because no one knew I was entered to win. I won $500, a trip to the news station, and a gift bag full of toys and games.

Other things include winning a few raffles for hats, a stuffed animal, etc.

Won a Sega Channel art contest (drew the main character from Shining Force II) and got a back-to-school pack with some book covers, pencils, a sticker sheet, and a notepad. I used that stuff up the following school year.

Won a DSi from a Kellogg's contest, traded up to a DSi XL which benstylus still has.

Won an Indy 500 VIP pass from a local band concert. Gave that to my brother for his birthday the following week.

Won a Persona 4 the Animation LE set from an OMG!Con charity raffle.

Won a Sailor Moon trivia contest at AkaiCon and got a banana bread-scented pack of candle wax melts. Gave them to a friend because we don't use scented candles.

Mattman2 wrote:
Ha! Cool. Imagine their reactions.

About 12 years ago the newspaper ran an article about a local woman who had won $40,000 in cash and prizes over the last 5 years. Every morning after getting her kids off to school, she would spend about an hour entering sweepstakes online.

Honestly not much. My middle brother had all the luck.

https://www.nabiscobacktoclass.com/#/login

Good luck guys. Grand prize is a trip for 4 to Super Nintendo world, oled switch, and $2,900 walking around money. First prize is an oled switch

My employer had an annual family day event. These events will have random drawing for the attendees. I won two $50 gift cards one year. Another year, they had some sort of generic family fued game. My family competed against another family and won over $100 in Little Ceasar gift cards.

In the GameTZ Game Club, I've won a copy of Trover Saves the Universe and also, a few weeks ago, and $10 Amazon code.

Won a door prize at a small anime convention here in town. My daughter picked out some prize, I can't remember.

Most recently, I won a Tetris Battle Gaiden tournament at Akaicon and won my choice of prize out of the prize bin. I took home a plush Yoshi!

Off the top of my head I've won a 50" Sony TV, Philips soundbar, Apple Watch, Beats headphones, Bose mini portable speaker, Roku TV, HP children's tablet. Callaway 60-degree wedge, and countless gift cards.

Most of these are door prizes from industry events (professional club meetings, company picnic, holiday events, etc.). I'm lucky in that I'm a decent golfer and when I was young and new to the industry I always had people contacting me to play in scramble tournaments for local unions or vendor events. There is always a banquet and raffle afterward. Majority of the above prizes are from these events.

I'm involved in both of the local CPMCA chapters and between the monthly meetings I've probably won 20+ bottles of wine and a couple hundred in Starbucks cards over the years. Always nice to come home from the event with something nice to share with the wife.

I don't know if "won" is the right word but I got a bunch of free Charlotte Hornets tickets in the mid 90s. My school would hold a contest every few weeks where you had to write an essay based on various subjects and they would pick a winner. I was a huge Hornets fan so I always wrote an essay. After the first three times I was picked as the winner it became apparent that I was the only one writing and entering essays, so my quality dipped pretty heavily after the 3rd win but I continued to win. All in all I probably attended 15 games from tickets I got from that contest.

beavis wrote:
Ha, cool. What'd you write about?

Citizen_zane's post reminded me of another one I won. I won a game TV football pool once. I never told anyone that I had no idea that it was a football pool or that I had absolutely no idea what was going on. I just picked a bunch of numbers and said there you go. I only knew that it was some kind of pool and I was supposed to pick numbers.

nonamesleft wrote:

Each essay topic was different and it was back in middle school so it's been a minute. I do remember one that had to be two pages that asked how I would help someone deal with a bully. There was also another that asked what I would change about the Hornets and I remember putting alot of effort into that one because they were (are) terrible and they had just traded my favorite player Muggsy Bogues and I was LIVID. I'm still a big Hornets fan and before I moved I was able to take my kids to a game in Charlotte which was alot of fun. I hadn't seen them live since those middle school days.

A small carry on suitcase
A brand new psvita system from the taco bell promotion back when it came out.
Comic books
A free $5 scrath off lottery ticket
And last but not least.....does my wife and family count!😁

Won a Tiger Electronics toy chest (box full of Tiger Electronic toys) by being the right caller to the local station showing WBKids channel.

Won various gift cards via social media to local restaurants

Won an iPad mini, Nike Shoes and some other swag at various work raffles/events.

I won the 1st Gen Fire tablet from a string cheese package. I thought the site was broken when it told me I won.

I also won a trip to Philadelphia with a bunch of giftcards (VISA, Uber, etc) from an NFT contest last year.

SublimeFan wrote:
I didn't know there were string cheese prizes.

I forgot that I won a SpongeBob PS2 game a long time ago. I don't even remember how I won it.

Genetic lottery. 6 foot 3 and a hulk of a man.

Prime wrote:

My wife: "The doctor didn't say you were a beast. He said you were obese."