Halted £1million Home raffle in Devon?
The gaming commission comes down on property raffles.
It’s hard not to have read the many articles on the £1 million property that was put up for raffle by a couple in Devon. If you haven’t read about it, a couple trying to beat the credit crunch put up their home for competition, managing to sell 46000 tickets at £25 each. The winner of the competition would win the house. Recently the Gaming Commission halted the draw… you can read all about on the BBC website Here.
People do not necessarely understand the difference between a raffle, a prize draw and a lottery. The Gaming Act of 2005 that took effect at the end of 2007, clearly draws the line between competitions, draws and lotteries. The case of the Devon property would appear to fall a bit too close to the guidelines that make it a lottery.
Running a competition of skill needs to comply with the many guidelines from the Gambling Act of 2005 and the guidelines issued by the Gaming Commission. The big issue is requiring payment to enter. Raffles and prizes draws have to be free to enter, as soon as you charge to enter a raffle or prize draw you risk falling into the category of a lottery which is strictly banned by the Gaming Act of 2005.
In order to put up a competition to win a home, you need to operate a competition of skill that both follows the guidelines of “restricting a significant amount of people to enter” and remove a significant amount of luck. As well, in order to be a competition of skill, the exercise of that skill needs to be measured against a panel of professionals.
For these reasons, Spotit.co.uk invested significant amounts to develop a competition platform that structures the competition of skill process and pairs entrants to the comeptitions to real professional football referees. Granted it is significantly more expensive and complicated, but it signigicantly reduces the luck component of the skill based competition. In the Spot the ball process against professional referees there is no random number generation, not lottery picking of the winner. It is all based around a rational and structured process of you versus the pros.
Perhaps it is the end of home raffles as we have seem them and it’s time that professional websites that have used legal counsel to structure it’s winner process support the win a home raffles and turn them into real competitions of skill.
Free competitions under development
Free to enter Spot the ball competitions coming soon.
Spotit.co.uk was launched in October 2008 with the initial desire for differentiation, it was part of the strategy to launch with only pay to play “Spot the Ball” competitions. We quickly realized that as much as people are familiar with the concept of Spot the Ball, potential customers weren’t necessarily familiar with the mechanics of skill based online competitions using Spot the Ball.
One of the fundamental reasons Spotit.co.uk competitions did not want to offer free competitions is that we did not want the website to be confused with all the other free to enter prize draw websites that cloud the Internet. Its important customers understand and differentiate between “Lead generation websites” that spend hundred of thousands of pounds in acquiring customer data by offering free prizes with the free competitions offered by Spotit.co.uk .
The goal of Spotit.co.uk free competitions is to get customers the opportunity to walk through the website and understand its mechanics, while at the same time being in to win a choice of real prizes.Maybe it was too much for people to discover a new site, build trust, enter competitions, register and pay to enter the competitions. Free competitions seem to be a good risk free middle ground.
We hope to be able to offer free “Spot the Ball” competitions on Spotit.co.uk by the end of November 2008.
Spotit winners announced
Spotit.co.uk competition website announces first winners.
Spotit.co.uk was launched in October 2008, a bit under the radar, by launching a number of soft launch competitions. During this soft launch period, Spotit.co.uk was marketed to a small group of users who also served as beta users and testers. Even during the soft launch period, the competitions were all real and especially… so were the prizes.
The first spot picking with our FA/Premiership referees took place in London from October 2008. The first winners have slowly trickled in since then. The first competitions to have completed include competitions to win electronic gadgets, week end breaks in Europe and the first winner for a 24ct gold plated iPod Touch.
New competitions are under development for larger more attractive prizes and wil be going live again in December. You can find the latest competition on Spotit.co.uk competitions.
Will the new Audi A1 make it to market?
New Audi A1 concept specs and thoughts
First revealed at the Tokyo motor show the concept Audi A1 is a clear indication of Audi’s desire to enter the Super Mini market. This model displays different, ‘more mature’ styling explains designer Frank Rimili, suggesting that Audi is aiming at an ever so slightly more mature market then the current super Mini segment would. This Audi pictured runs on a hybrid 150bhp 1.4 petrol engine up front and a 28bhp electric motor in the back, the result is a fuel efficient and quite torquy 60mpg. The electric battery pack supporting a 60 mile range on its own. The New Audi A1 concept would have a CO2 emissions as low 92g/km. Although the design looks pretty conventional it features some unusual detailing, the extent and shape of the headlights’ illumination changing with the car’s speed, for instance.
During city driving the Audi A1 headlights give the vehicle a slick face, but as the car increases its speed the headlights will become progressively brighter. Other cool design details include a radiator grille that is protected by a Perspex panel. Because the new Audi A1 concept car is a hybrid drive train the cooling requirements are reduced. The radiator panel thus increase the aerodynamics. Better yet, the back window over the boot of the Audi hatchback is split, any of the half panes can be opened independently allowing you to drop the grocery bags via just the window.
Why is the Audi A1 concept car important?
This A1 concept car is a preview to the model that Audi is likely to market, the New Audi A1 is planned for a 2010 launch with the three door model preceding the 5 door version of the New Audi A1. A smaller, more economical Audi A1 will be particularly appealing in green times with highr road taxes and rising fuel prices. The A1 will make a great replacement for the now dated A2 hatchback car that never seemed to gain popular appeal. Ironically, the A1 is almost certain to be constructed from weightier steel then most other all aluminium model but final car panel construction decisions won’t be finalized till production dates are set.
90% production likelyhood for the Audi A1
Unlike man autoshow concept and prototype vehicles, the concept Audi A1 is on it’s way, but like every concept shape displayed are international car shows, how close will the production Audi A1 model resemble the production model? The availiblity of the hybrid power train and the low emissions are sure to make this a verysuccesffull model of Audi granted the clean macho designer lines of the car are not smothered by the EU safety regulations that so often degrades original body styles.
Are car insurance comparison Websites any good?
According to UK watcdog consumer associations, price compariso
n websites are failing to provide the cheapest quotes for car insurance and car loans in the UK.
Major comparison website that offer search facilities for car insurance and car loans are not all equal with search criteria varying significantly from car comparison website to website.
The similar website services such as comparethemarket.com, confuse.com, tescocompare.com or moneysupermarket.com will give very different resultsfor similar search queries for car insurance, car loans and other financial services.
When taking the largest car loans and car insurance comparison engines we can see find the following differences:
A search on moneysupermarket.com for the car loans with the lowest standard rate of interest came up with one at 6.8%. Yet on gocompare.com the best figure given was12.9%.
The magazine found that the price of basic car insurance varied by as much as £120. Gocompare.com gave a figure of £251 for one search while confused.com offered £371.
On identical policy comparisons for car insurance the magazine found that costs of loans varied greatly from £300 on gocompare.com, £232 on moneysupermarket.com and £253 on confused.com.
Which? said that consumers would do better to visit all three sites, providing they could cope with the extra information.
On explanation for the difference in results for both car insurance quotes and car loans comes from the diversity of customer information that is required by the comparison search websites. Because the questions tick a variety of different boxes, the returned quotes can vary significantly from car loan comparison website to website.
It can be very confusing to compare all three major websites such as gocompare.com, moneysupermarket.com and confused.com fro the same financial products and car insurance.
Customers also need to remember that the cheapest car policy or the cheapest, lowest interest rate for car loans does not mean that they are getting the better deal, the lowest price but especially the best policy adapated to their needs.
Al the more certain insurance and loan companies refuse to be included in the index of car comparison websites such as Directline.com who pride themselves as only operating direct.
