Have you ever won something? A sweepstake, competition, or other? What was it? Tell us your story.

About twenty iPods.

Walkers, a snack company, was running a contest where you could enter a draw every ten minutes, 24 hours a day, to win an iPod. They also had a website where you could get an entry code without buying anything. I was one of the few people to have unlimited texts and a phone controllable by Bluetooth at the time, so I ran a script to just spam the free entry codes. Somehow they never cottoned on.

I won some stuff in a church raffle when I was a teenager. Nothing remarkable - i think a suitcase.

I also won some sex toys from a charity raffle for repro rights, but some past partner took them. Not sure who, but I don't have them anymore.

Thinking about it for the first time now, it is funny how those are two very different contexts.

When the internet was still young I entered an online drawing to win a vacation on a travel website. I never really thought much of it. One day I decided to answer the phone even though we got lots of telemarketers. The woman was from the travel company and said I'd won a rafting trip in CO and that this had been their third and final attempt to reach me. It was totally legit, they paid for the flight, rafting trip and rental car. Due to low river levels the trip was moved to the San Juan river in UT though. It was an awesome trip. We even paid some extra to keep the rental car longer to add some extra sightseeing days to the trip.

When I was a kid we won second in a general mills national contest for “a treasure chest of games.” They sent us a cardboard board with plastic pieces and like 4 games on it. Someone sued based on the commercial, and we got some cereal coupons.

Many years later, I won like 3rd in a Mountain Dew cap contest. They actually sent me the snow board - no binding or anything, but Mountain Dew has integrity.

I won a geolocation game from Rita’s and got a year of free Italian Ices. Every day during March they gave out a geolocation and you had a certain amount of time to find them to win. The first few days i missed the time limit. A couple times i was second. After a week or so i noticed a general pattern and started closer to the part of town i thought they would be. The day i won i was in the parking lot of the stadium where they were and watched them setting up. as soon as they sent out the geolocation i walked up and claimed my prize.

I was a volunteer working at the first LinuxCon in 2009, I worked in the expo hall and at the end of the first day one of the booths had a raffle to win an android G1 developer phone and I ended up winning.

The best part was, by winning the phone instead of having to buy it through t–mobile I was able to keep my service without having to pay for adding data and it was a couple years before I had to actually start paying for data.

I somehow managed to get through to a radio show that was having a giveaway, and answered their question correctly. I won tickets to a concert, and a load of their sponsor's merch. I was still young, but even then I knew my luck was shit, so I was really excited even though I didn't like the band I was going to see lol

Didn't matter.

The tickets arrived the day after the concert had happened, and the merch was all either factory seconds or used (so all slightly damaged in some way - a stain, an undone seam, a broken clasp). I tried calling to let them know, but all they did was send another load of damaged merch.

Off the top of my head, that's the one and only thing I've ever won.

I really do have shit luck lol

When I was a kid my parents won some kind of sweepstakes or drawing. Well it was like third or fourth prize, but it was a huge box (a cube almost as tall as my legs are now) that was just filled with cereals.

A Kellogg's contest, I believe. Can't remember for sure.

Around 1981 or 82, I was about 12 years old and the local college radio station had a call-in for identifying snips of popular songs at the time. Best I can recall, it was Girls by Dwight Twilly, Let the Music Play by Shannon, and I think there were 3 others but I can't remember what they were. The prize was a discount coupon to the local pizza place.

I didn't think anyone actually won Instagram contests, but my spouse won a magnum of locally roasted coffee which is lovely, and a free Valentine's dinner at a very nice restaurant in Buffalo. I won a board game called Scruples for answering some ethics question in a column in the newspaper the Globe and Mail. Many years ago before it became what it is now.

I worked at Starbucks 25 years ago, when it was actually not a bad job and had some nice perks and was actually pretty good to work for. There was a game called Cranium that was sold through Starbucks then, and there was a contest for staff for a draw to win a VW bug with Cranium decals on it, and amazingly my coworker one, the decals could be removed. It was actually pretty nice.

Radio question. Sibling knew the answer, but didn't want to call. Mother was driving. So I called. Have the answer. It was correct and I was the first. We won tickets to some young kids show and gave them to a family friend.

I also won a Weird Al lookalike contest. Despite being female. I was one of three people there and the only one trying. Which meant Hawaiian shirt, my old huge glasses, and permed my hair. Got front row tickets for that, which is all I wanted so my very short sibling could see the concert. Also got to meet him though, that was nice.

Back in the mid 90's, I won a "Rocko's Modern Life," t-shirt from a Nickelodeon contest. It was one where you'd have to call a phone # when his face would pop up in the bottom corner or something like that for like 10 seconds. Caller # whatever, could win the grand prize or whatever but I got a tee. Wore that shirt with pride all the fucking time.

I won on a radio call-in show called "name that tune," three times. They took two callers. First one gets one second of music and time to answer. If they fail, the second gets ten seconds of music and time to answer.

I was in the one-second position all three times. I was sort of amazed that I kept winning. The prize was a CD in each game. That's how I got into Stabbing Westward, as I wouldn't have bought Whither, Blister, Burn and Peel myself, but it was a prize.

On my 18th birthday I bought 2 scratch lottery tickets, and doubled my money (20EUR spend, 40EUR return). Never played since. I beat the system 😎

Almost 20 years ago I won an iPod Nano and a Fubu shirt at a raffle at a black church in Norfolk VA when I was 17. I was the only white kid in there.

To say the bus ride back was uncomfortable is an understatement

When I was a kid, maybe 13 years old, I heard about a Halloween costume contest at a natural history museum.

I wanted a costume somehow science related, so I decided to dress as a mosquito (seems weird to me now, but whatever). My mom sewed together a black felty fabric into a proboscis that went out over my head and a sort of cloak down my back with legs coming off it. We cut a Styrofoam ball in half and painted it yellow for the eyes. The wings were a white mesh fabric on a frame of drinking straws that we taped together.

I won the contest for my age bracket, and the prize was some Star Trek: Deep Space 9 refrigerator magnets. I don't think I have the magnets anymore, but I still have the costume, though it's falling apart a little.

Okay, I have to go text my mom and tell her she's awesome.

Ahhh, I've won a goodly number of things.

Back in school, me and this one girl spent years going back and forth as spelling bee winners.

Won a watermelon seed spitting contest.

Jr high, I didn't win shit except some bad memories, but that's off topic lol.

High school, I took a couple of weightlifting wins.

After that, as an adult, it was more hit or miss. Never anything worth money, or not enough to matter.

I am still absurdly proud of winning a biscuit cookoff at the county fair. Not even joking, I was up against old southern ladies that had been making biscuits longer than my dad had been alive. I had been working on perfecting my recipe at that point for about ten years. I won that fucking ribbon twice. It's all about technique, how you handle the dough.

While it was kinda low key, no prizes, no ribbons, nothing physical, I won a cross school sparring session at the dojo I went to. We cross trained with several other dojos of various arts. But the guy that owned our dojo got five of those to all get together and do this big session.

Basically, you go in and you spar. Light contact only, you have to protect your training partner. But you get in the circle and you go until you tap, or someone scores a hit that would be a KO. Next person steps in when that happens. I was taking classes in both Japanese jujutsu and American kempo. This was maybe a year into things, so I was still raw as hell.

We were in three groups, beginners, intermediate and advanced. I was thrown into intermediate. I can't recall how many of us were there total. I wanna say it was a little over a dozen in that group, plus maybe twenty in the beginners, and a handful in advanced.

Anyway, I was third in. I did the full group. Got damn close to an actual KO when an axe kick was faster than I thought. Was damn near choked or otherwise close to tapping more than I can recall. I was breathing fire and eating bitter. Like, my throat was in more pain than anything else because it doesn't matter how well you hydrate, you're panting and struggling so hard it gets dry in seconds. And I had to pause twice to vomit, hence eating bitter lol. I can't recall the japanese phrase for it.

Anyway, the first two guys cycled back in, and I managed to scrape out an arm bar and a leg lock. The circle starts again, and I'm wiped. Like, my arms are rubber, I'm dizzy and can't see straight, I'm wobbling all over the place. I don't even remember the last two guys. But the last one got me. Basically just pushed me over lol. I had nothing left in the tank. But I was the only one in any of the groups to go a full circle.

I have no clue where it came from. I'm not exactly Mr stamina. I was a power lifter, I wasn't built for that kind of sustained effort. I damn sure didn't manage the feat the next meetup lol. Did well, but not running the circle well.

But! I did get my dinner and drinks paid for out of it.

Later on, as a bouncer, I got into some real fights and some of those were way less of a "win" in my mind.

About the only thing I've ever won that came with enough money to amount to anything was a chili cookoff. Prize was a hundred for the winner. So, you know, not a big prize or anything. This was small time stuff. I did do some other cooking stuff at a state level, but never got wins. I spent that hundred on my nephew. He wanted a guitar, and had been saving. He had found one he liked at a pawn shop, and was short something like fifty bucks. So I gave him the hundred to finish it off and get some strings or whatever.

I've personally never won anything. I've entered maybe 1 or 2 of those contests yt people I watch/used to watch did where you go to the link and click on all the social media junk in hopes of winning a console, but never did win anything.

But a real long time ago my brother did win some contest. I think it was a radio contest but I don't remember nor care much about it. Won some free martial arts lessons (probably just karate but I don't remember). I think it was maybe 1-2 of them or something else as a promotion progresses something. I don't fully remember because this was well over a decade ago.

When I was still being taken to church I won the door prize at youth group (church for teens) one night during a special event we were running (some thing to encourage people to invite their non-believing school friends and show how "hip" and "fun" they were, there were raffles and video games alongside our usual "live music", skate ramps and bbq). The prize itself was a mobile phone. I was so happy because I didn't already have one, but ultimately my parents decided I couldn't have/use it until I got a job to pay for the credit. I did eventually get a job at KFC and was able to use the phone.

Another time I was visiting NZ with my parents and we were touring the base of a mountain and the guide was like "guess the height and whoever gets closest wins this pen", I won but my mum made me give the pen back because she thought I'd cheated somehow? Idfk. Still a bit salty about the pen.

Yesterday I visited a new fantasy themed bar/restaurant, and they had D20 shots. It was my first time there, and of course I rolled a 20.

I got a 2oz lemon drop shot and got to keep the glass

We had a raffle at the local community center. Everyone bought tickets, and the prizes seemed decent (bottle of wine, large wicker chair, rocking horse). The winner of all three draws was the long-standing cleaning lady of the center, who had just had a grandchild and was heading for retirement.

I'm all for supporting someone's retirement, especially for someone who has given a lot of effort to making the community feel hospitable.
But not like this, not like this....

I got Drake's leather diary from the uncharted games through a subway sweepstake.

I already won the lottery. Born in the US of A baby!

I won a robot R2D2 in a raffle. This was like over 10 years ago. It had voice commands, and somehow understood me better than Siri.

I went in on an office lottery thing, we won 20k, ended up being about 500 ea. In takehome But still nice, it was mostly about the thrill of winning more than the winnings themselves, it was my first time buying in. I also won a 400 dollar smart watch at a work raffle.

Nope. But my GF is one of the luckiest people on earth. By now she won a car, 3 holidays, a travel bag, heck we are going to holiday on ice this Sunday, we bought the ticket last year, and we picked the only spot where thommy ten and amélie van tass have a show. We got upgraded hotels multiple times for free, she even once got a graphic designer monitor for half the price due to something.

I won Blockbusters Donkey Kong tournament for the SNES when I was 6. Got a champions card that gave me one free video game rental every other week for a year. I won at two stores and my brother won in 3 stores in his age bracket. So we constantly had free new games to play. That was the best year ever.

Maybe fun fact: Dr. Disrepect's "Two Time Champion" claim is from these blockbuster tournaments.

Scholarship. When I was still in school.

About 15 years ago, I happened to stumble upon an online promotional contest for the movie 2012. It was a contest of logic games that took place 1 at a time over 4 or 5 weeks, and it just so happened to be week 1 still. Seeing as I used to be a big nerd (I still am, but I used to, too), I decided to give it a shot. Once the contest was over, I promptly forgot about it until I got a random phone call a couple months later.

Turns out, I ended up placing in the top 12, which meant I had won a PS3 and some crappy Sony video camera. It also meant that I was moving on to phas two of the contrst. Phase two required the contestants to make a video and get elected by the internet as the winner, for a chance at a vacation to Mexico. I wasn't keen on doing all that, so I phoned it in for the video. All I wanted was the PS3, honestly.

My wife and I did part of our gift registry at 'crate and barrel', they had a business card pot to have a drawing from for some cookware, I had just gotten my first business cards, and remembered a tip I'd read about bending/creasing the business card in half before dropping it in. I tried it and we won a 4 quart 'le cruset' sauce pot. It's the most expensive piece of cookware we have, and it's amazing. I haven't used that trick since then, partially out of guilt, partially out of being 1 for 1 on business card draws.

A few years ago I won an expensive audio interface and headset from a retailer. Funny thing is that I don't remember signing up for that specific giveaway

I won a poetry competition when I was 15, but submitted the poem for my little bro. He ended up winning, getting in the local paper, getting published in a book, meeting a big celebrity for a photo etc.

Never won any award with my own two books, which I spent a lot more time on!

I rarely even participate in these. But back then I won a Logitech MX518 (the original) at a competition of a PC hardware magazine.

Sports gambling. Won idk around 60 euros maybe more and stopped. 60 euros for someone in highschool in country where euro was not used is a lot.

My family won a Super Nintendo from a mini wheats box when I was a kid.

• I was the winner of my school's science competition, I'd made a volcano that could emit "lava" (baking soda and vinegar)
• At school I won a contest where we had to design posters for movies that didn't exist, and the winner would get theirs put on the wall
• Lots of high-speed go-karting sessions!
• Not sure if this counts as a competition, but I had an admin of an art website select my art and feature it on the front page for a while which resulted in it getting almost 500,000 views (I remember panicking wondering why I suddenly got so many messages in my inbox!)

nothing lifechanging and not much is memorable. Only thing I can remember actually is a rocking chair. I do not enter things very often.

I won The Game.

I believe you all lost.

I won an Xbox 360 a long time ago from a Coca Cola competition. You had to use codes from the bottle caps and then quickly answer some quiz questions correctly. But you had unlimited tries. So I just kept clicking random answers quickly until I got all questions right at a ridiculously low time.

Good times. Borrowed Guitar Hero, LA Noire, Batman Arkham Asylum and Red Dead Redemption at the library, had a blast.

My phone service provider used to do daily roulette type giveaways.

I won a free return flight to basically anywhere in Europe.

I actually never did anything with it, because at the time I couldn't afford to pay for someone else to go with me (I would have gone with my partner).

I regret not just flying on my own, but them's the rubs - I was, and am, a bit of an idiot.

I also once won a game key by making a funny YouTube comment on a Unit Lost video once too - but I never used that either; it wasn't a game I was interested in, I just liked to watch the vids for a bit of a laugh.

I don't win much, but when I do I squander my wins.

Just some minor nonsense. But all of it yields a fun memory.

I won a hat from a Wario Ware (Wii) tournament at my country's biggest nerd-convention circa 2009. Got like a 15 minigame lead on the second place too.

I won a(n imported, we're brazilian, these were never published here) copy of a My Little Pony Comic Omnibus from a giveaway at an MLP forum I participated in some 10 years ago. I never read the physical comic, it just sits untouched at my shelf. I just read the pirated .cbr

A few months later my SO won a Hot Topic Vinyl Figure of Princess Luna (also imported) from another giveaway at the same forum, and gifted it to me.

I won the lottery to be conceived.

0/10 would not recommend

I won a keg of beer on the entry ticket to a local beer festival.

A local hotel/chateau had organised it. They had failed with their marketing, and managed to pick the same weekend as a much larger beer festival in the same city.

I got ticket #26 on day 1, Saturday. I don't think they sold more than ten tickets after me that day. I walked past with my dogs the following day and there were like four people there.

Oh, and I also won the demo competition at a local demoparty. First prize was a bag of chips and a brush for doing dishes.

And the 64k intro competition at the biggest demoparty at the time. First prize was a big-ass box of sponsored hardware - graphics cards and processors and stuff.

F'n fruitbasket when I was about 10. Nothing after that. Although I don't usually participate.