It’s safe to say that we’ve been a little bit out of the loop in recent months when it comes down to comping. Some might say we’ve been out of the loop for a tad longer, but we do try and keep an eye on what’s going on. The more dedicated among you may have seen the following articles before, but we’re just grouping a few together just in case you haven’t.
£35000 Of Prizes In A Year
Back in January 2016, The Metro reported that Chloe Bingham made an incredible £14,000 in just five months by entering competitions – mind you £10K of that total was for one competition. According to the article “from August to December 2015, she won 42 different competitions” which by our reckoning means that each prize (barring the biggie) averaged at a £100 valuation. Given that the quality of prizes really isn’t that great these days that’s some going! A month or so earlier a Tina Saunders featured in The Mirror. Tina started comping in 1981 and has won lots of nice things. Interestingly the article doesn’t try and append a figure to Tina’s winnings although they do headline that she spends “two hours a day entering competitions”. Those two hours are a mere pittance compared to Leanne Kendrick who appears in a similar article but in The Sun. Leanne wins “£35,000 worth of prizes in a year by entering 400 competitions a day” according to the headline. Delve in to the article and Leanna does warn that comping can be “very time consuming”.
The Ultimate Comper
The Daily Mail do love a comping article and back in August (yes we’ve been out the loop a while) they did an unusual comping article as it featured a male comper! Kiran Parry has won prizes worth £17,000 in three years according to the report – and that puts him well behind Chloe and Leanne in the “value of prizes stakes”. All the above are mere amateurs though! Sue Mellor is the “Ultimate Comper” according to a report from The Sun in June 2015. Sue has won an incredible £150,000 worth of holidays over the last 15 years. June 2015 seemed a popular time for comping articles as AOL Money published an article asking “Can You make A Living Entering Competitions”. Super Lucky Di gets a mention in this one with her “£250,000-worth of prizes.. over the last 17 years”.
Comping Magazine Ceases To Be A Magazine
In other comping related news, Life Death Prizes put out an article Are you a comper? Here’s how you know you’re addicted to competitions. They list 52 different comping type things although they missed out a 53rd: “when you see a duck you automatically think of Loquax”… perhaps that would have been more so back in the day eh? What else? Oh yes – Simply Prizes Magazine stopped being a magazine. They’ve become a website only service now which kind of defeats the object of being a magazine. Their departure from that scene just leaves Compers News as the main comping mag – and they’ve gone and shrunk their publication so it fits in your handbag! Finally CN’s kind of sister site Competition Hunter has now closed, which just goes to show that running a viable competition service isn’t that easy.
Who Cooked The Comping Goose
The latter paragraph aside, the numerous articles on comping don’t always go down well with other compers. It’s felt that they encourage more people to take up comping and reduces the chances of winning – which is always getting tougher. The thing is I’m not convinced by this at all. Yes they will have some effect but their reach isn’t the same as that which can be achieved by social media or online services. Many of the above articles have probably gone into the ether and have been forgotten about – yet every day compers share their competitions, wins, news etc on Facebook – and lots of non-compers will see that. Similarly if a website, with 11million email subscribers, an active forum and a celebrity owner, mentions competitions and comping then that will have a greater reach then pretty much anything else. We have seen a few barbs aimed at so called “celebrity compers”, or those that sell their story, accusing them of cooking the comping golden goose. Yet the goose was well and truly cooked when comping became a major part of social media activity… just in my opinion.