A few months back I got an email from Glassdoor telling me I’d won an iPad – I was convinced it was a scam, the email has weird bold words randomly, no company logo – it thought it was a scam so much I forwarded it on to Glassdoor via their Twitter just to let them know.

Anyway, turns out it was a real email and I’d won an iPad. To top it off, they engraved it and it arrived saying “Love your job” on the back.

Yes along time ago, I entered a silly competition in Performance Car magazine which was 3 simple multiguess questions.

A few weeks later I was in Caterham having a tour of the factory and arranging delivery of a caterham 7!!!! It was a complete kit that with all new parts that I then spent 2 weeks of quality garage time building and then enjoying for a few years on sunny days

My Missus used to enter competitions as a hobby a few years back.

Wins that I can remember:

• Long weekend for 4 in Paris
• A week all inclusive for 4 at Port Aventura theme park with flights
• A week in Iceland for 2 including spending money
• Pallet of cat food
• As many paperbacks as she could fit in a Samsonite suitcase, plus the suitcase
• Various hotel breaks around the UK
• Several crappy bikes
• A grands worth of Berghaus clothing (that she gave to me)
• Numerous cases of Irn Bru
• Several hundred pounds worth of Frankie & Benny’s vouchers
And so on…
Stuff used to turn up at the door all the time.

And before I met her:
• Tickets for the World Cup Semi Final in Paris including accommodation and private jet travel
• 2 weeks learning to sail in the Caribbean
• Trip to Hollywood & Vegas
• BBQ party for 20 in the back garden hosted by a professional chef
• VIP tickets and accommodation for V Festival
• VIP tickets and accommodation for British Grand Prix
• A year’s supply of beer
• Wine tasting tour in France
• Chocolate tasting tour somewhere in Europe
• All expenses paid trip to turn on Blackpool Illuminations (she was on the podium with Little & Large IIRC)
• Lots and lots of biscuits
Apart from the holidays they were mostly runner up prizes that she sold on or gave away. She never won a car.

When i listened to XFM in my mid twenties i was a regular texter. I won some tickets to an Idlewild gig with a stay for 2 in a premier inn. I don’t remember entering a competition. I assumed as i pestered the presenters i was ‘rewarded’ the gig was good though.

A night at The Shard 5* hotel, meal at a Michelin star restaurant and a helicopter flight over London the next day is my biggest ever win.

Santander Cycles competition.

I won £123 off them once as well which was a promotion of their Santander 123 account when they took over sponsorship of the cycle hire scheme from Barclays.

I’m in profit from horse racing. Been once, placed a couple of £10 bets, one won me £60.

Five numbers on a Wednesday lottery draw in around 1998 netted me circa £1,400, frittered it all away very quickly.

Santa Cruz Chameleon and a week for two in Morzine. Didnt even know I had entered and thought it was a windup.

Not a sausage. Even the work Lotto syndicate netted less than a fiver per person last year.

I have more success at losing.

Struggling for money after we bought this house so cancelled life insurance and a load of other ‘non-essentials’ – had a heart attack 2 months after.

Won a sidewatch (anybody remember them) – It didn’t work when it came!

Won a Nitro Revo 3.3 in Modelsports monthly draw – the week after I decided to convert one I already had to electric as it was too noisy 😀 (they were great and swapped it for something else)

‘Won’ a T shirt at Santa Pod, miss-fired out of an air cannon 6 foot away. Nearly knocked me out and the Tee was far too small.

That’s about it.

Driver at work (many years ago) won 20k in the national bingo, then won £60k on the lottery the day after – then retired 2 weeks later. Only one of them was planned.

Won a DAB radio in a raffle at work once. ‘Substantial’ might be pushing it but it sits in my home office and gets used daily.

Driver at work (many years ago) won 20k in the national bingo, then won £60k on the lottery the day after – then retired 2 weeks later. Only one of them was planned.

Timing!

I ‘won’ the jackpot at the cheltenham gold cup about 10 years back. it was £250k or so split a few ways in the end. Good day at the races that one.

I won a pair of Rapha shoes in the CyclingUK raffle last year. They are too nice to use 🙂
That’s about all I can remember that was pure luck.

Won a couple of poker tournaments a few years ago that were middling amounts, but nothing life changing.

Mrs B entered the Rapha Festive 500 on strava about 4 years ago. She completed it and submitted an entey to the Spirit of Festive 500′ competition, a series of handmade postcards about her rides written to her deceased father.

She won, got a custom Moots titanium Di2 gravel bike. They paid for her flight and put her in the apartment over the Moots factory in Steamboat Springs, Colorado for a fortnight. I went and paid for my flight.

We were treated like VIPs, and are friendly with the company ower and manager. Every day someone would take us out on gravel rides. Everyone was totally amazing with us both, and we have made fantastic friends.

Ian

Twenty something quid on the lottery 4 numbers as well, I was dead excited for about 20mins.

Won a bottle of beer in a charity raffle – Death or Glory from BrewDog that sells for around £100. Waiting for a special occasion to open that one!

Exposure Maxx-D. That was pretty useful!

ShuttVR tights and Merino top on Road.CC

Mrs Sandwich won £10k shopping from BBC when they launched their commercial website back in the 90’s. We had a couple of secondhand cars out of that and a load of stuff for the kids too. (The marketing company aggravated her so much that she spent it all bar about 10p by ordering AA batteries).

The meat raffle in my local, years ago. The steaks were substantial, tbf.

My sister and I won a trip to see Paul Weller in Paris on Simon Mayo’s Confessions thing when he was on Radio 1 in, er, 1998 maybe? We were on the radio and everything.

Anyway, we both had Uni exams and couldn’t go, so our dad and another sister went. They didn’t bother going to the gig, just had a trip to Paris 🙂

And £200 on a scratch card when I was 15-ish (so probably shouldn’t have been sold the scratch card…)

I have never won anything as a prize. At all.

Admittedly I don’t enter things very often as I never win. There’s a certain circularity to this…

I won a brand new Volvo*

* for 6 weeks

The ice hockey stick I won in 1998 seems a little shit in comparison to some of these.

I think I won Letter of the Week once in MBi around 1992-3. Don’t recall actually receiving anything, but the warm inner glow is still satisfying.

I won a MiniDisc player in an early ‘what HiFi’ competition..

Won tickets to the women’s wimbledon final one year – didn’t even know i’d entered that. Bought Robinson’s squash and blipped my clubcard..

£25 on premium bonds last month

Sure i’ve won quite a few other things too!!

DrP

3 Tickets to the first day of the London Olympics including Virgin train tickets and money for lunch…all via a can of Coke

Nothing substantial yet – but I’m just buying a few tickets for tonights Euro Millions.

Nothing quite as spectacular as many “wins” posted so far but I did win a purple specialized rockhopper comp back in 1992 by collecting 3 barcodes and answering a question from mountain bike action magazine, quite a good bike at the time but I already had a pine mountain so gave it to my girlfriend. It came with a stupid 140mm stem though, I chopped 50mm from it and welded it back up.

I can’t believe that, as the OP of this thread, I forgot I HAVE won something a bit better – I twice won tickets to see Leeds United in the Champion’s League including entrance to the VIP lounge, meal and drinks – I already had tickets to the games so it was more of an upgrade and I got to see us play Barca and Real from top seats, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Mark Lawrenson, Big Ron and various ex-footballers.

My wife once won us a short break in Paris at a posh hotel with all expenses paid.

Not sure if ‘won’ is the right way to describe it as I was nominated and chosen to get tickets for LDN olympic finals which turned out to be Super Saturday.

Won a year’s supply of Guylian chocolate once by buying a bar of it in Aldi, gave it to my mum as I didn’t like the stuff!
Have also won a helmet from a photo competition with MBR.

Nothing compared to one of my parent’s neighbours. The wife is a habitual competition enterer and over roughly 6 years she won a few £10k+ amounts, two new cars (Corsa from Kingsmill, Fiesta from Take A Break), plenty of holidays and countless Hoover’s, white goods and bits of crap. They ran a pub at the time so it wasn’t unusual for regulars to be given stuff they didn’t want or bar raffles to run for the more expensive stuff.

A 4-pack of scotch eggs. 😉

A saddlebag for taking second place in a junior xc race back in the 90s. Pretty sure that’s about it. Might have something to do with never entering competitions.

I love this thread or at least I did until that nasty HarryTheSpider went and spoilt it with his next level performance.

Keep ’em coming. Love a happy thread.

Bar performance related work jollies that I ‘won’ (that don’t count) I think all I won was a grey sweatshirt from one of the Tahoe ski resorts only I was in Leeds at the time.

£125 on the lottery recently. Spunked it back on tickets since and that’s just dried up albeit with 4 week ticket to run, so fingers crossed.

I won a walkman when I was about 12. My mum didn’t want me to have it, and the ticket has been given to me by a friend’s sister who was a bit put out that I won. So I gave the walkman to her. Probably postponed getting tinnitus for 4 years, so I’m OK with that…

£20 on a scratchcard is about as good as it gets for me.
Oh, and an OS map of pen-y-ghent signed by Julia Bradbury! Heading over that way camping this summer so actually quite useful.

The day my first daughter was born I won £1000 from a Lucozade text the code competition I had entered the previous day out of sheer boredom having been stuck at the hospital for 30 hours for the induction. We were so poor at the time that it was like winning a million pounds. Was sure it was a con right up until the cheque turned up

We won the lottery at work back when it just started so big money, only a dozen or so of us in the syndicate so over a £100k each. Anyway the guy who had been giving the cash to put it on ‘forgot’ we never mentioned it too often. He didn’t put it on at all though, he’s long left us and poor, he doesn’t work and his wife left him.

£250 on a £5 scratchcard, I’m sure that was beginners luck. It was about the 2nd I’d ever bought.

But I didnt get run over and killed by an articulated lorry while sleeping one time hitchhiking aged 16, so I consider that the best luck of all, and probably had my lifetimes of luck in one go there 😆 ,so I’ll be unlikely to get any more.