Although there aren’t many new win a house prize draws being launched in recent months there are still a number from 2021 running. A handful of these are or at least were due to close at the end of January. The biggest of these is the Omaze Ascot house which we know will create a new home winner simply because the prizes are guaranteed. If you’ve missed out on this particular property then Omaze also have a Lake District property worth £3million up for grabs. We suspect that they will possibly launch a new raffle in the next month or so! As well as celebrating the end of the Ascot Omaze prize draw we should also be looking to Raffle House for the results of their latest promotion.
House Raffle Extension
Unfortunately there won’t be a winner of the Raffle House West Drayton Flat prize draw – at least not this month. This particular prize draw launched in August 2021 and originally had a closing date of the end of October. However “so as to award the property as the prize, rather than a lesser cash-prize” the draw was extended until the end of January 2022. This extension obviously hasn’t been enough to boost ticket sales sufficiently to award the property because the closing date is now the end of May 2022. And the reason for the extension? Ten points to Hufflepuff if you said “so as to award the property as the prize, rather than a lesser cash-prize”. But that’s not all. Raffle House have made changes to the ticket purchase structure.
Win Your Dream Home For?
According to the website you can “win your dream home for £2” and up to the recent extension you could purchase a ticket for £2. However it now seems that the minimum purchase for the house raffle is £10. In fact it looks like Raffle House have been inspired by the Omaze model where you get a big bundle of tickets for a one off fee. At Omaze £10 buys you 15 entries to the prize draw but you can’t purchase single tickets. Raffle House will give you 30 tickets for a tenner, 100 tickets for £25, 250 tickets for £40 and 900 tickets for £100. That means the individual tickets are cheaper than the £2 mentioned but it’s a meaningless phrase or hook when you can’t spend less than ten pounds on a ticket. Raffle House have fallen foul of ASA rules before and they could be walking on thin ice with this situation.
What Are £2 Tickets Worth?
But what happens with respect to entrants who willingly parted with £2 thinking they’re purchasing one ticket for the prize draw? Let’s assume an entrant paid £10 for five tickets in December, well fast forward a month and that same £10 gives them 30 tickets. In theory that means the latter entrant now has 20 more chances to win the cash or home prize as the entrant who thought the competition was coming up to close as prescribed. How can that be right? Anyone purchasing tickets for this house prize draw between August and the recent extension in January should be rightfully annoyed. And even more so because there’s zero communication about any of these changes on their social media platforms.
So What Next?
If you continue to upset your customers/entrants with extensions and messing around with formats then that’s not a good long term policy. Omaze works because the prizes get awarded. To date no one other than Raffle House and the winners of the last two competitions know if the house or cash was awarded. We suspect the latter! But what will happen in May? Will they award the property rather than a “lesser cash-prize”? Will they extend again and again? Will they have to deal with ASA interventions again? Our view is the latter could be likely. They should have ended the promotion as of the end of January and awarded the cash prize – then launched a new competition with the new ticket structure. But that means starting from scratch probably with a new property and spending more on advertising. Either way Raffle House are on a slippery slope as everything they’re doing just adds more and more distrust to their brand and to house raffles in general. Thankfully the likes of Omaze and Tramway Path are doing a better job.