Number crunching...

...today I got to thinking: what are the odds that I could win one of those online contests that I blog about?

The answer: slim to none

Here's why:

Too many others want to win too! Though the radio stations have no shortage of contests and prizes to be won, they have a finite number of giveaways.

Let's take News 1130 as an example of a station with only a few giveaways. How many people have an account and use their points to enter the draws? 500? 5000? 25,000? They have 67,000 Twitter followers, and over 7500 FB likes, so as a conservative estimate let's say that 10,000 people enter the online raffles. With maybe 5 prizes per week, that's 260 per year. If no one wins twice, that's 260 people per year. So if they wanted to spread the love and make sure each of their account holders won at least one prize, it would take 38 years to come full circle so someone would win again.

Let's look at CFOX: 13,000 Twitter followers and 5800 FB likes. Let's say 4000 people regularly enter their online contests (concert tix, movie passes, etc) and they give away 20 per week, that's 1040 per year. It would take about 4 years to come full circle, during which time new people have signed up.

I didn't include the plethora of call-in prizes because they have no control over who wins those - as long as a person hasn't won in the past 30 days, they can win (up to 12 times per year!) With the raffles, I suspect they have some say in who wins...

I only say this because when I first signed up for News 1130's club, I won concert tickets within the first month. Same when I signed up for CFOX - a MAJOR prize within the first month. And nada ever since from either (in YEARS!) So it would seem that new members are more likely to win these raffles...

Have any of YOU won more than once from the same station's online contest??