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Craig Earl
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Joined: 13 July 2019
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 1676
Posted: 23 February 2026 at 4:32pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply
My wife has a habit of entering competitions. Over the years, she has won:

A VIP concert trip to Amsterdam
A weekend in New York plus tickets for the Blue Man Group
A free year's viewing with SKY
Tickets to see Paul Rodgers at the Albert Hall (I was very grateful!)
Tickets to The Brits
Countless cash prizes and other freebies which I cannot remember.

Just before Christmas, she was drawn from a pot of forty thousand people and won the following bundle of goodies:

£200 M&S voucher
Ninja Airfryer
Ninja Slushie Make
Ninja Ice Cream Maker
Nintendo Switch 2 (plus controllers and 2 games)
Lego 'Bowser' kit
Soundbar
Chocolate Hamper
Smeg Coffee Maker

The reaction from people that she tells is always the same:
'Wow - you are so lucky!'
To which her response is almost always:
'I just enter a lot of competitions. Do you?'

Despite her answer, she does seem to be extraordinarily lucky (natch!). I've lost count of the amount of times we've entered raffles or gone to local fetes and she has come away with a prize of some kind.

Are any of you naturally lucky?
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John Byrne
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Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 135721
Posted: 23 February 2026 at 5:06pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply
A friend of my parents simply couldn’t enter a contest without winning. It was amazing to see.

She even won a big chunk of the Canadian lottery once!

Me? I have been very fortunate, but not literally “lucky”.

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Brian Miller
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Joined: 28 July 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 31901
Posted: 23 February 2026 at 6:58pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply
We work concessions for events around the many different venues around
Nashville. It’s all NFP work so we don’t technically get “paid.” At the end of
hockey season last year Bridgestone Arena held raffles for all us NFPers to
enter. There were probably 40-50 different prizes and we were given 5
tickets to disperse however we wanted between them. I put all five of mine
in for a foot massager. I won it! I was also the only one that had entered for
it. It actually did a great job. Sadly, it didn’t even make it to the beginning of
this hockey season.
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Steven Myers
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Joined: 10 June 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 5740
Posted: 23 February 2026 at 9:05pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply
I think there's a combination of luck and attitude. You will occasionally get lucky or unlucky. It's how you react to fortune that matters. Gambling addicts are obsessed with winning so they are devastated when they don't win. People say I'm lucky, but I think it's about being happy when you are fortunate and not unhappy when things don't go your way.
Anyway, I recently won 2 tickets to a Cleveland Browns game. In order to be eligible I had to have perfect attendance. It's part of their campaign to reduce school absenteeism. So that was luck, but also a result of my actions.
The best I've seen is when my wife won $2500 of free furniture from a furniture store that was opening up.
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Wilson Mui
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Joined: 27 June 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 4583
Posted: 23 February 2026 at 10:50pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply
My cousin in Canada wins something every few months. Once
she won a car. Like Craig's wife, she enters many contests.
There is truth to the old NY Lottery slogan "You have to be
in it to win it."
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Bill Collins
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Joined: 26 May 2005
Location: England
Posts: 11528
Posted: 24 February 2026 at 1:36am | IP Logged | 6 post reply
I used to do a fair few in the days of answers on a
postcard!

Best i won was a Carlos Ezquera original 2000AD cover
painting.

A Chris Foss signed print.

An all expenses paid VIP trip to Dublin for the unveiling
of the Phil Lynott statue and the tribute gig at The
Point.

A flatscreen tv.

Too many dvd's, bluray's, cd's and video's to mention.

The win that gave me the bug was The Empire Strikes Back
on video around 1984 in the days before sell through via
a comp in the local video rental shop!
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John Byrne
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Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 135721
Posted: 24 February 2026 at 6:22am | IP Logged | 7 post reply
Worth noting that in Canada winnings are generally tax free.
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Peter Martin
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Joined: 17 March 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 16367
Posted: 24 February 2026 at 1:59pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply
Quite a few countries apply the 'windfall' logic; UK, Canada, Australia, Germany, most of Scandinavia.

I am underwhelmed in my performance in the UK lottery and the Atlantic lottery. I did win three prizes out of four in one day at my school... though there was some elements of astute judgement to some of that.

On TVS' late night segment (southern regional station in the UK), I once won a bunch of Dances With Wolves prizes (CD, T-shirt, making of book). My name was drawn out of a hat, but you had to know who wrote the screenplay to get into the hat (this was before t'internet or the film winning its Oscars).

And then another name-drawn-from hat incident got me in one of six available seats on a Navy Puma helicopter ride at school -- once again some element of astuteness involved (I handed my name in on a piece of hard card, figuring the drawing hand would be more likely to seize on it).
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Peter Martin
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Posted: 24 February 2026 at 2:05pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply
*I'm a fan of Jeopardy and, since learning about the way the US taxes winnings, I have felt bad for the contestants having to hand over a large chunk of their winnings.
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Ted Downum
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Joined: 21 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 2436
Posted: 24 February 2026 at 2:19pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply
I am not naturally lucky with contests, lotteries, and such, though I have won a couple of things over the years--the "biggest" being a boxed set of remastered Yes albums on CD, plus an autographed Roger Dean print. 

[insert your own joke about how many aging prog-rock fans even noticed that the record store was having a drawing for that prize, let alone entered the drawing]


Edited by Ted Downum on 24 February 2026 at 2:21pm
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Brian Floyd
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Joined: 07 July 2006
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Posts: 8824
Posted: 24 February 2026 at 3:54pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply
I have never won any contest involving drawings or scratch offs that I have ever entered.

In fact, I once called a tv station that was giving away t-shirts to anyone who answered a trivia question corrrectly, and was told my answer was wrong. It wasn't. So someone else ended up with a shirt that they didn't deserve.
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John Byrne
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Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 135721
Posted: 24 February 2026 at 4:44pm | IP Logged | 12 post reply
When I was around 11 I entered a piece of my art in a competition connected with the Edmonton Exhibition, big annual trade fair. And I won! First prize! $25!

My Dad took me down to the Exhibition office, where I showed the grumpy guy behind the counter the letter I had been sent informing me of my win. H gave it a cursory glance, and reached into his pocket, pulling out a 25¢ coin which he dropped in front on me.

I was flummoxed. My Dad, always one to avoid conflict, put a hand on my shoulder and steered me out of the room. When I finally found my voice I started to protest, but Dad just shrugged it off.

(Didn’t get my art back, either.)

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