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How Sweepstakes Work · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My
0:03
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
0:12
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W Chuck Bryant, Jerry's over there.
0:16
Speaker 1: And you may already be a winner because you're listening
0:21
Speaker 1: to Stuff you Should Know the podcast. I was going
0:25
Speaker 1: to say, a version of the same thing. So, hey,
0:28
Speaker 1: that's the that's the spoils of doing the intro. That's right,
0:32
Speaker 1: you may be a winner, yep, chump sweep steaks. Yeah, man,
0:38
Speaker 1: So I was aware of sweepers before that. There's this
0:42
Speaker 1: group of people out there, Yeah, the hobbyists, people who
0:45
Speaker 1: enjoy sweepstakes, and we'll talk about them later. Um. But
0:49
Speaker 1: as I got more and more into like researching sweepstakes,
0:51
Speaker 1: I'm like, wow, that's pretty interesting stuff. There's a lot
0:54
Speaker 1: more to it than even that. Yeah. I have never
0:57
Speaker 1: I don't think, entered any contest. Well, you know what,
1:03
Speaker 1: I fully take that back, because almost every year I
1:06
Speaker 1: entered the HDTV Dream Home, do you really Yeah, Well
1:09
Speaker 1: that's like one of the big sweepstakes in the United States. Yeah, well,
1:13
Speaker 1: I mean every year that I sort of remember. I
1:15
Speaker 1: haven't had cable TV for a few years, so I'm
1:18
Speaker 1: not reminded as much. But that's one of those Like,
1:22
Speaker 1: I mean, have you ever entered have you ever seen
1:24
Speaker 1: those houses? Yeah, I've ran across them during this research,
1:28
Speaker 1: and yeah, they're very beautiful. Not only that, they don't
1:30
Speaker 1: stop with the house. They'll give you like a GMC
1:33
Speaker 1: yukon and like, here's half a million dollars in cash. Yeah,
1:36
Speaker 1: it's gotten crazy. Now, you know, here's some Um, here's
1:41
Speaker 1: a couple of snakes that are really exotic and expensive.
1:44
Speaker 1: I think they do a green home as well. Now.
1:48
Speaker 1: I think there are a couple of them and one
1:50
Speaker 1: of them, I think the green home one year was
1:53
Speaker 1: you know, saren By here outside of Atlanta. I think
1:56
Speaker 1: one of them was at saren By. Yeah, there's one
1:58
Speaker 1: that they gave away in the last year, so on
2:00
Speaker 1: a merite island in Florida where I've been. Um. And
2:04
Speaker 1: then there was one in I want to say Miami
2:07
Speaker 1: or something, and I write about the person who won.
2:09
Speaker 1: Actually it was written in the Miami Herald. I don't
2:12
Speaker 1: remember where the house was, but they couldn't afford it.
2:15
Speaker 1: They won and they were like, I can't afford the
2:17
Speaker 1: taxes on this house. Yeah, that's what the you know,
2:20
Speaker 1: growing up everyone's dad basically, well, you know, you gotta
2:24
Speaker 1: pay taxes on that stuff, right was I would find
2:29
Speaker 1: a way to work that out if I want an HTV, GTV,
2:32
Speaker 1: Green Home whatever. But I mean if you all of
2:35
Speaker 1: a sudden were like, I don't have fifteen thousand dollars
2:38
Speaker 1: for taxes, and I mean I think that's the same
2:41
Speaker 1: with game shows and stuff. Right. Oh yes, As a
2:43
Speaker 1: matter of fact, Chuck, you can read all about that
2:46
Speaker 1: in our chapter on the Perfect Prices right Game, which
2:49
Speaker 1: is in our stuff you should know colon an incomplete
2:52
Speaker 1: compendium of mostly interesting things book. That's right, And I
2:56
Speaker 1: gotta tell you of I'm trying to think. I think
2:59
Speaker 1: of all the chapters in that book, that might be
3:02
Speaker 1: the one that I was the most jealous of. From
3:06
Speaker 1: the podcast standpoint, what do you mean, like putting it
3:10
Speaker 1: on as a podcast rather than being a book chapter.
3:13
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, man, I still want to do
3:14
Speaker 1: that as a podcast. Maybe, you know, maybe one day
3:18
Speaker 1: we can. Yeah, I don't think there's anything stopping us
3:20
Speaker 1: from doing that. I think we might want to wait
3:22
Speaker 1: a little while. Nope, we're doing it next week. I
3:24
Speaker 1: don't want to undercut the book sales. Well, no, we
3:27
Speaker 1: definitely won't want but well, I mean, I think we're
3:29
Speaker 1: totally fine to do any and all that one out
3:32
Speaker 1: of all of them will be the most difficult because
3:34
Speaker 1: it's such a straightforward story, but I'm sure we'll find
3:37
Speaker 1: a way to plump it up. I wonder if that
3:39
Speaker 1: would incentivize people to buy the book if we did
3:42
Speaker 1: an episode from one book chapter and said do you
3:46
Speaker 1: want uh, you want more? Yeah, like how many more?
3:49
Speaker 1: How many chapters are there? Again? For yeah, you want
3:52
Speaker 1: twenty six more stories? If you're reading, get the book pleasures,
3:58
Speaker 1: especially if you put it all off chord in vaguely
4:00
Speaker 1: hostile like this. Yeah, I think that's that's that's the
4:04
Speaker 1: old publishing trick hostility, right, or assertiveness when Poe moved
4:12
Speaker 1: a lot of books that way? He did so uh
4:16
Speaker 1: oh yeah, you can order a book now, pre order
4:18
Speaker 1: anywhere you order books, including indie bound and uh, didn't
4:22
Speaker 1: you come with the bit ley If you want to
4:26
Speaker 1: support black owned bookstores, you can go to a bit
4:29
Speaker 1: dot lee slash s y s k b LM in
4:32
Speaker 1: order it from there. Uh so that's our spiel, which
4:35
Speaker 1: actually was organic. It's not at all scripted. Don't think that.
4:38
Speaker 1: Um if if you did, then you obviously missed the
4:42
Speaker 1: clumsiness in all of it. But we're not talking about
4:45
Speaker 1: our book today. We're talking about sweep steaks, sweep steaks,
4:48
Speaker 1: and in fact, sweep steaks chuck. The word itself, sweep
4:52
Speaker 1: steaks is hundreds of years old. I think they found
4:56
Speaker 1: its origin at least in the thirteenth century. Yeah, because
5:00
Speaker 1: is back then, um they were you had steak in
5:04
Speaker 1: it like you would buy. It was kind of like
5:05
Speaker 1: a lottery. You would get a bunch of people to
5:08
Speaker 1: throw in money for a ticket and it probably wouldn't
5:11
Speaker 1: even a ticket, and some person would win and so
5:15
Speaker 1: they would sweep the stakes. But it's not like that. Uh,
5:19
Speaker 1: competition in the UK, a contest in Canada, sweep stakes
5:22
Speaker 1: in America. Those are different because they are always no
5:26
Speaker 1: purchase necessary. That's the differentiator, right. The one thing that
5:29
Speaker 1: they have in common with those is that the winner
5:32
Speaker 1: takes all. That's the point. There's like a grand prize
5:34
Speaker 1: where this this one person wins the prize, you sweep
5:37
Speaker 1: the stakes, right, Um, But that is totally different from
5:42
Speaker 1: a lottery, and a lottery is self sustaining. So much
5:45
Speaker 1: so that you fund educational systems with lottery proceeds. That's
5:48
Speaker 1: how self sustaining it is. With the sweep stakes, it's like, well,
5:51
Speaker 1: there's one person putting up the prize, but then somebody
5:54
Speaker 1: else comes along and wins it. What does that person
5:57
Speaker 1: who puts the prize have to stand to gain from it?
6:00
Speaker 1: And that the answer to that question is the heart
6:03
Speaker 1: of sweep Steaks, which is basically publicity. That's where they
6:06
Speaker 1: came from. Sweep Steaks or like you said, competitions in
6:10
Speaker 1: the UK, your contests in Canada. They were born in
6:13
Speaker 1: maybe the forties fifties for sure, as a marketing and
6:18
Speaker 1: advertising tool that some companies and salesman came up with
6:22
Speaker 1: to basically move more stuff at the very least get
6:25
Speaker 1: people interested in some item or product that would have
6:28
Speaker 1: otherwise just been overlooked in a regular ad. Yeah, and
6:32
Speaker 1: sometimes it was UM and still can be very blatant
6:36
Speaker 1: in that. Uh the there's a like a code on
6:40
Speaker 1: a product UM, and you like, well, this has no
6:43
Speaker 1: purchase necessary. But sometimes you can actually buy a product
6:46
Speaker 1: that has a code that you can then UM enter
6:50
Speaker 1: like a UPC symbolship. Then so sometimes you do have
6:53
Speaker 1: to buy things. But uh, sometimes it is literally just
6:59
Speaker 1: we have and it you have to be a new thing.
7:01
Speaker 1: But oftentimes is a new product maybe from an old stable,
7:05
Speaker 1: like a new kind of toothpaste from um Pepsident or something,
7:11
Speaker 1: or coal Gate, and they're just trying to drum up
7:14
Speaker 1: pr and a good way to do it is to
7:16
Speaker 1: give away fifty grand and get people just in that
7:19
Speaker 1: aisle of the store, right, and so have them say like, well,
7:24
Speaker 1: I need some toothpaste. I normally get coal Gate, but oh,
7:27
Speaker 1: Pepsident has a fifty sweepstakes right now, I'm just gonna
7:30
Speaker 1: buy the PEPs in at this not too yeah, how
7:33
Speaker 1: can I lose? And they hopefully from that point on
7:37
Speaker 1: they'll keep buying PEPs in it. Right, So that's a
7:40
Speaker 1: way to drum up sales. Um But you said something
7:43
Speaker 1: that was really important. One of the things that differentiates
7:46
Speaker 1: the sweepstakes on purpose from say like a lottery is
7:49
Speaker 1: that there's no purchase necessary to win. And in the
7:52
Speaker 1: United States, no purchase necessary is like just common vernacular.
7:57
Speaker 1: Everybody knows that phrase. That came from what's no inn
8:00
Speaker 1: as sweep steakes law, which is to get around rules
8:04
Speaker 1: and regulations against lotteries in the United States, Yeah, gambling.
8:08
Speaker 1: One of the ways that that they did that was
8:10
Speaker 1: to create this other way to enter you didn't like, Yes,
8:14
Speaker 1: if you bought this tube of toothpaste, you automatically had
8:18
Speaker 1: your your entry form right there because it came with
8:20
Speaker 1: the package. But if you didn't want to buy the toothpaste,
8:23
Speaker 1: but you still wanted to enter the sweepstakes, they had
8:26
Speaker 1: to afford a way for you to get an entry
8:29
Speaker 1: form and enter without any kind of purchase whatsoever, and
8:34
Speaker 1: then that entry had to be as valid or eligible
8:38
Speaker 1: to win. Um, have the same chances of winning as
8:40
Speaker 1: somebody who did make the purchase. No purchase necessary to win. Yeah.
8:45
Speaker 1: The other thing is sweep steaks will do is give
8:48
Speaker 1: you and this has changed over the years obviously, but
8:51
Speaker 1: give a salesperson a lead. You got to get those
8:54
Speaker 1: Glengarry leads or you're or you're on the way out
8:56
Speaker 1: the door with uh no job basically. So in the
9:01
Speaker 1: old days, it was, um, let's say there was like
9:03
Speaker 1: a sweepstakes if you bought a blender. If you didn't
9:07
Speaker 1: buy the blender, but you entered the sweepstakes, at least
9:09
Speaker 1: there would be your information to blender sales people that
9:13
Speaker 1: would be like, well they were looking at blenders, I
9:15
Speaker 1: know that much or else they wouldn't have even known
9:16
Speaker 1: about this these days. Um. Obviously, like with social media,
9:21
Speaker 1: that's a big way that it's done. It's all done virtually,
9:25
Speaker 1: so they know that if you just click on something
9:27
Speaker 1: to enter a sweepstakes, then all of your information can
9:31
Speaker 1: be sent to whatever company that is. And that's why
9:33
Speaker 1: you're gonna start seeing if you enter some like ari
9:36
Speaker 1: I sweepstakes or something. Don't be surprised when in your
9:39
Speaker 1: in your social media feed you start seeing nothing but
9:42
Speaker 1: ads for outdoor gear, right exactly. But it's it's so
9:45
Speaker 1: it's kind of updated for the century, but it's the
9:49
Speaker 1: same principle. You're saying, I'm interested in blenders, please send
9:53
Speaker 1: me all the advertising you can find on blenders. Um.
9:57
Speaker 1: And that was how it was before, when you send
9:59
Speaker 1: in your info by hand or put it in a
10:01
Speaker 1: box in the store. It's the same thing now when
10:03
Speaker 1: you enter to win an online sweepstakes and you share
10:06
Speaker 1: your contact info like that. It's just now we call
10:08
Speaker 1: it data mining and rather than the blender salesman getting
10:11
Speaker 1: in touch with you to see if you still want
10:13
Speaker 1: to Blender that you didn't win. It's some third party
10:16
Speaker 1: marketing company that is getting in touch with you because
10:19
Speaker 1: your information was sold to them. Uh, because you entered
10:24
Speaker 1: into that Blender sweepstakes. So it's different, it's updated, but
10:27
Speaker 1: the points the same. Sweepstakes are there to increase brand awareness,
10:31
Speaker 1: to generate buzz or hype around a new product. It's
10:34
Speaker 1: a form of advertising, um, and it's a way to
10:37
Speaker 1: generate leads for sure. Uh. The thing is they were
10:41
Speaker 1: huge in the fifties and the sixties, and one of
10:43
Speaker 1: the reasons that they took off um was because the
10:46
Speaker 1: Reader's Digest. Actually, yeah, read Reader's Digest, the little tiny
10:51
Speaker 1: magazine that everyone's grandmother had, uh, and that you would read.
10:55
Speaker 1: You know, laughter is the best medicine. And what was
10:58
Speaker 1: the other one that was a couple of like very
11:00
Speaker 1: kid friendly, regular things. The joke one meth meth meth.
11:07
Speaker 1: I think it was meth myth meth all exclamation points.
11:10
Speaker 1: Now there was another thing. It may have been like
11:12
Speaker 1: true stories that were also funny. But I remember reading
11:14
Speaker 1: Reader's Digest a lot as a kid, which is hysterical
11:17
Speaker 1: because it's so not kid friendly. So the point is
11:20
Speaker 1: is they go through and read magazine articles and then
11:23
Speaker 1: condense them down to like abbreviated versions. Is just the
11:27
Speaker 1: broad strokes, right, I think so, Like I never got
11:30
Speaker 1: that back then, but I think it's sort of like
11:32
Speaker 1: a a dummies version of the Utney Reader from what
11:35
Speaker 1: I can tell. Man, it's so bizarre. Yeah, so they would, um, yeah,
11:40
Speaker 1: what a weird concept? Is it still around? Oh yeah,
11:43
Speaker 1: Reader's ide just is definitely still around. I guess it's
11:45
Speaker 1: like the antithesis of long form where they're just like,
11:48
Speaker 1: we don't need all that stuff. Here's the main babe.
11:52
Speaker 1: I'd like to get my hands on a reader's digest
11:54
Speaker 1: and and see what it's like these days. And a
11:56
Speaker 1: shawl nice toily because it gets a little so. Uh.
12:01
Speaker 1: That was always the joke with growing up in my
12:05
Speaker 1: church was whenever the keenagers, which is what they called
12:07
Speaker 1: the old folks, it's adorable, um would have an outing
12:10
Speaker 1: that the lady this one woman would get up and
12:13
Speaker 1: say it, uh, you know'd be like July and she'd
12:16
Speaker 1: say and remember to bring us weeater at the end
12:19
Speaker 1: of it it didn't matter what time of year, that's adorable,
12:21
Speaker 1: got to bring us sweater. Um. So and of course
12:25
Speaker 1: that's a just to make fun of. Dude. It's so
12:27
Speaker 1: funny you said, because I was about ten fifteen years
12:31
Speaker 1: from now, we're really gonna backs against the wall a thing. Yeah, no, No,
12:38
Speaker 1: that's not what I was saying. Okay, I was saying,
12:40
Speaker 1: we're gonna get called out for a just offhand remarks,
12:43
Speaker 1: I know, and we're going to be cold both because
12:46
Speaker 1: we're gonna be old, bring us sweater. So. Uh, Reader's
12:51
Speaker 1: Digest had a a form and they were very upfront
12:55
Speaker 1: about their sweepstakes. Um, it was preprinted, it had a
12:58
Speaker 1: number there and you could just fill it out and
13:00
Speaker 1: mail it back. And Reader's Digest was trying to sell
13:04
Speaker 1: subscriptions and um, you know publishers clearing houses obviously the
13:07
Speaker 1: elephant in the room. Um, the big daddy of all
13:11
Speaker 1: sweep Steaks, which is another weird, weird company when you
13:14
Speaker 1: think about it, very especially today. Yeah, I mean magazine
13:19
Speaker 1: subscription sales. But that's where the company started out. It
13:22
Speaker 1: was a magazine subscription salesman who went door to door
13:25
Speaker 1: and said, you know what nuts to going door to door.
13:28
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna drum up are brochure and mail it
13:30
Speaker 1: out to people. And he started getting responses like that
13:34
Speaker 1: so much so that he put this company, Publishers clearing
13:36
Speaker 1: House together and then when they became like a household,
13:39
Speaker 1: word was when they attached sweep steaks to it, like
13:42
Speaker 1: Readers Died, just to demonstrate it was so effective. Because
13:45
Speaker 1: like with Reader's Digest or Publishers Clearing House or whatever, ultimately,
13:49
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, they're trying to sell
13:50
Speaker 1: you something like you said, Reader's, I just was trying
13:52
Speaker 1: to sell you a subscription. They're attaching the sweepstakes to
13:55
Speaker 1: it because they're they're using that age old lever of Hey,
13:59
Speaker 1: everybody check it out. It's a big deal. We're giving
14:01
Speaker 1: away a million dollars and also here's everything you need
14:04
Speaker 1: to order as many subscriptions as you like from us.
14:07
Speaker 1: Do you have any magazine subscriptions? Yeah, We've got Dwell,
14:13
Speaker 1: which is no longer to my taste, like I don't
14:15
Speaker 1: like current modern design in architecture and decor today right now.
14:23
Speaker 1: But we also have one from L Decor. That one
14:27
Speaker 1: is very much up my alley. There's a lot of
14:29
Speaker 1: color and stuff like that. Um, we have Men's Health
14:33
Speaker 1: and g Q, I think, which is not paying off
14:37
Speaker 1: our lot because I dressed terribly and I'm overweight at
14:41
Speaker 1: the moment, big time. Uh we Emily gets um. She
14:45
Speaker 1: gets a few home magazines. I think like, like you guys,
14:50
Speaker 1: we we both share our love of like architecture and
14:53
Speaker 1: stuff like that, so we we like looking and fantasizing
14:56
Speaker 1: about like these amazing places. That's why I entered the
14:59
Speaker 1: dream home thing. Every year. I know, it's kind of
15:01
Speaker 1: like a little mini vacation to go through one of
15:03
Speaker 1: those magnor it's also fun to judge and be like, oh,
15:06
Speaker 1: you paid a million dollars for that, you chump. Why
15:09
Speaker 1: don't you get some taste? But did I say to
15:12
Speaker 1: the magazine. What I'll never be though, is the person
15:14
Speaker 1: on HDTV House Owners that walks through and goes she's
15:18
Speaker 1: I don't know about this place, Look at that ceiling fan.
15:20
Speaker 1: Do they do that on house Owners? Oh? People, I
15:23
Speaker 1: mean it's all set up anyway. House owners, they already
15:25
Speaker 1: have the house when they go on the show. It's
15:28
Speaker 1: it's a big scam. But uh yeah, there are people
15:31
Speaker 1: that say, like, you know this ceiling fan or this
15:34
Speaker 1: wall paper, and they're like, that's really easy to change,
15:37
Speaker 1: my friend, And the producers off camera, they're like, can
15:39
Speaker 1: you actually like stick your finger down you throw them
15:42
Speaker 1: and make yourself vomit. It will really really pay off.
15:46
Speaker 1: All right, I think we should take a break and
15:49
Speaker 1: come back and talk a little bit more about sweepstaks.
15:51
Speaker 1: How about that, let's do it. I want to learn
16:01
Speaker 1: about a terrosortic college, how to take a perfect movement,
16:04
Speaker 1: all about fractalskiscon Hun, the Lizzie Border murders, that all
16:08
Speaker 1: runs on the plane, everything we should know. Word up, Jerry, Okay, Chuck.
16:18
Speaker 1: So we've been talking about that h g TV Dream
16:20
Speaker 1: Home giveaway, UM, and there's good reason because it is
16:23
Speaker 1: one of the big ones, but it's also one of
16:26
Speaker 1: the easiest to understand. Um. If you go and read
16:29
Speaker 1: up on hd TVs Dream Home UH sweepstakes, you're gonna
16:34
Speaker 1: find there's a very clear reason that they give away
16:36
Speaker 1: this huge prize with all of this money and cars
16:39
Speaker 1: and all this stuff, because I guess they build the
16:43
Speaker 1: home over the course of like a season and then
16:46
Speaker 1: they give it away, so part of then it right.
16:50
Speaker 1: So they're generating UM viewers for the TV show, which
16:55
Speaker 1: is supported by advertising, and the more viewers you have,
16:57
Speaker 1: the more you can charge for ads. UM so the
17:00
Speaker 1: sweepstakes is just basically being used to generate buzz for
17:04
Speaker 1: the TV show now or vice versa, maybe both, but
17:07
Speaker 1: the point is there. It's paying off for them, which
17:10
Speaker 1: is why they keep giving this stuff away. But I
17:13
Speaker 1: have a soft spot in my heart for this one
17:15
Speaker 1: because they are one of these uh few giant sweepstakes
17:20
Speaker 1: that just say here's how it's done, ask us whatever
17:23
Speaker 1: question do you want? This is all very much on
17:24
Speaker 1: the up and up. Yeah, and it's also, um just
17:29
Speaker 1: a big advertising benanza period. So not only are you
17:32
Speaker 1: getting that GMC suv, it's like frigid air and like
17:36
Speaker 1: I guarantee, every single thing in that house has some
17:40
Speaker 1: sort of sponsorship attached to it, like from the siding
17:43
Speaker 1: down to the to the dude who poured the concrete.
17:45
Speaker 1: You know, I'm sure they all donate that stuff for
17:48
Speaker 1: in kind advertising. You know, that's a Tommy Thompson brand
17:51
Speaker 1: concrete job. It's double stamped. But yeah, HDTV is very cute,
17:58
Speaker 1: like they they have a um I think they actually
18:01
Speaker 1: have a regular drawing, not even a computerized drawing, like
18:06
Speaker 1: they do it the old fashioned way, right dude, Yes
18:09
Speaker 1: they should. But I just had a stroke of genius.
18:11
Speaker 1: We should get h G t VS Dream Home sweepstakes
18:14
Speaker 1: to sponsor this episode. That would be great, that would
18:18
Speaker 1: be full circle. Yeah, and maybe put your thumb on
18:21
Speaker 1: the scale for one of us. Yeah right, you know. Yeah,
18:24
Speaker 1: so um with the with the dream Home giveaway. The
18:27
Speaker 1: way that they hold the sweepstakes um is through what's
18:31
Speaker 1: called a random drawing method where if you enter, you
18:35
Speaker 1: can enter by mail, I believe, which is the old standard,
18:38
Speaker 1: old fashioned standard way. You can also do it online,
18:41
Speaker 1: which is far in a way the much more common
18:44
Speaker 1: way to do it now do it. But either way
18:47
Speaker 1: you're going to have your entry placed into a bin.
18:50
Speaker 1: They have actual physical bins, like I get the impression
18:53
Speaker 1: it's of fifty five gallon drum and your entry, your
18:57
Speaker 1: physical paper entry goes into that drum. Or fit's online,
19:00
Speaker 1: it goes into a virtual bin. And then at the
19:03
Speaker 1: end of the contest, these bins have maybe like fifty
19:06
Speaker 1: thou entries in them each and then they're they're sealed
19:09
Speaker 1: off in a new been started and each bin's numbered right.
19:12
Speaker 1: And then at the end of the contest they put
19:15
Speaker 1: uh the number of ping pong balls is there are
19:19
Speaker 1: bins put those in a lotto machine pick one, and
19:24
Speaker 1: all of a sudden you have your bin number, And
19:26
Speaker 1: now things are getting for real, are they not? They are?
19:29
Speaker 1: And then uh, and I think that's what I like
19:31
Speaker 1: about it. Two is the old school nature of it,
19:35
Speaker 1: wherein like you're you're getting selected out of a hat essentially,
19:39
Speaker 1: and you have just one a house. Well no, no,
19:43
Speaker 1: not yet. Your bin has just been picked. You haven't
19:45
Speaker 1: necessarily been picked out. You gotta tell them how old
19:48
Speaker 1: school and low fi this is. Oh well, yeah, once
19:51
Speaker 1: you get to the bin, I mean, don't they just
19:53
Speaker 1: like dump it on the floor and literally pick it out. Yeah,
19:55
Speaker 1: when they seal a bin, they give it a good
19:57
Speaker 1: shake and a roll and all that. So that like
20:00
Speaker 1: any so, so the the first entry isn't necessarily any
20:04
Speaker 1: better off than the last entry. They're all mixed together
20:07
Speaker 1: pretty well. But then yeah, they dump it onto the
20:09
Speaker 1: floor and they take an HDTV employee, blindfold him or
20:13
Speaker 1: her them, and push them towards the pile of envelopes,
20:18
Speaker 1: hopefully without them falling down, although if they do, it's
20:20
Speaker 1: on a pile of envelopes, so it's not too bad.
20:23
Speaker 1: And then they just grope and grab one and that's
20:26
Speaker 1: your winner. If it's a physical one. If it's virtual one,
20:29
Speaker 1: a computer program runs through all the names in that bin,
20:31
Speaker 1: and then the the the employee presses the space bar
20:35
Speaker 1: and stops it. Either way, it's a random person picked
20:38
Speaker 1: and I love it. You might as well be conducting
20:40
Speaker 1: like a Catholic church fair drawing at that point, when
20:45
Speaker 1: you have somebody blindfolded grabbing at a pile of envelopes.
20:48
Speaker 1: That's the level that you're at. Yeah, you know. It
20:50
Speaker 1: would make it even better, is if they is if
20:56
Speaker 1: they did that, but instead of choosing the winner, they
20:58
Speaker 1: chose like five different names, and then they had those
21:03
Speaker 1: people come in and they had David Broms Dad's holding
21:07
Speaker 1: up five match sticks with his hand in front of
21:10
Speaker 1: the camera, and each person had to draw a match
21:12
Speaker 1: stick and the longest stick wins the house. Who's David
21:15
Speaker 1: Bromstad Is he from Stranger Things? No, he's he's HDTV. No,
21:20
Speaker 1: that makes more sense than he's the guy that's like
21:22
Speaker 1: now covered in tats that didn't used to be covered
21:25
Speaker 1: in tats. No idea wa see the trainer who recently
21:29
Speaker 1: had a heart attack, but now he's on this blood thinner.
21:32
Speaker 1: I don't think so. He's uh. I mean now another
21:35
Speaker 1: show he does is the is the Lottery dream Home.
21:39
Speaker 1: Like he he gets lottery winners and tries to sell
21:42
Speaker 1: them how or you know, shows them houses. I've never
21:45
Speaker 1: heard of depressing show. Actually, yeah, I don't. We've done
21:49
Speaker 1: one on lotteries before. But did we touch upon like
21:53
Speaker 1: how tragic most lottery winnings are? Uh? Yeah, I think so. Yeah,
21:59
Speaker 1: So I can imagine that show has been of a
22:01
Speaker 1: downer if you really think about it, it can be. Yeah,
22:04
Speaker 1: that's all I'm gonna say. Might have to start watching that.
22:07
Speaker 1: I'm in the market for a downer TV show, So
22:09
Speaker 1: thanks for that. Well, you would think a lottery dreamhouse
22:12
Speaker 1: show would be like nothing but awesome in excitement. But no, no,
22:16
Speaker 1: I think sometimes just the way people like to spend
22:20
Speaker 1: their money can be depressing. Yeah, I'm with you, you
22:22
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. Yeah, I don't. I don't want
22:24
Speaker 1: to judge if that's there. I don't want to yuck
22:26
Speaker 1: their yum their dreamhouse. YU. Sure. Oh I see what
22:29
Speaker 1: you're saying. I thought you meant like I just bought
22:31
Speaker 1: one of the share of the Dallas Cowboys, so pretty valuable.
22:38
Speaker 1: So that random drawing method is pretty um pretty standard.
22:41
Speaker 1: That's kind of, from what I can tell, the gold
22:45
Speaker 1: standard of sweep steaks. There's also one that's one of
22:48
Speaker 1: the original ones, called the pre selected method, and this
22:52
Speaker 1: is the one that was used to great effect for
22:54
Speaker 1: many decades, and it's the one that UM Publishers clearing
22:58
Speaker 1: House frequently uses to where the winning number is selected
23:04
Speaker 1: first secretly and held in in confidence, and then a
23:09
Speaker 1: bunch of numbers that have the same number of digits
23:11
Speaker 1: as that that winner, including that actual winning string of numbers,
23:15
Speaker 1: are put onto mailers for Publishers clearing House and mailed
23:18
Speaker 1: out everywhere, Which is why they can say you may
23:21
Speaker 1: already be a winner, because you could conceivably be holding
23:25
Speaker 1: the winning envelope because the winning numbers already pre selected. Yeah,
23:30
Speaker 1: as a kid in the seventies and eighties, we didn't
23:33
Speaker 1: really fully get that. We saw an envelope with Ed
23:36
Speaker 1: mcmayl's Ed mcmail ed McMahon. He should have been Ed
23:39
Speaker 1: mcmayl with his name and face on it. You may
23:43
Speaker 1: already be a winner some fake check written out to you. Uh.
23:47
Speaker 1: Sadly a lot of people thought those were real checks.
23:50
Speaker 1: There are stories about that we'll um. So I didn't
23:54
Speaker 1: really fully get that, but I guarantee you that the
23:57
Speaker 1: people that that participated in these things new that it
24:01
Speaker 1: was a pre selected winner and if you are lucky enough,
24:06
Speaker 1: you and you gotta pay attention, because what they kind
24:09
Speaker 1: of counted on was that most of these omalosts get
24:11
Speaker 1: thrown away, most of these prizes go unclaimed. I think
24:15
Speaker 1: that ten of the prizes, uh were ever even awarded
24:19
Speaker 1: for those early Publishers clearing House sweepstakes. Yeah that was
24:22
Speaker 1: not just no, not even Publishers clearing House. I think
24:24
Speaker 1: this might have been before then. This was like Colgate,
24:27
Speaker 1: Paul malo in U and oil companies and soap companies
24:31
Speaker 1: and toothpaste makers were all like using this pre selective
24:34
Speaker 1: method and they would get all of the like the
24:36
Speaker 1: attention and all of the advertising, but they would have
24:39
Speaker 1: to give out none of the money because the chances
24:41
Speaker 1: are that nobody that the winner or the person with
24:45
Speaker 1: the winning package didn't go to the trouble of actually
24:47
Speaker 1: taking it back to the store, and so they would
24:50
Speaker 1: get all the advertising without any of the having to
24:53
Speaker 1: give up any of the money. And so um, this
24:56
Speaker 1: actually got a lot of bad press. Um it led
24:59
Speaker 1: to FTC hearings that later led to congressional hearings that
25:02
Speaker 1: that created some legislation we'll talk about later. But the
25:06
Speaker 1: upshot of it is that it caused companies that have
25:09
Speaker 1: sweepstakes to create what's called the second chance drawing, which is,
25:14
Speaker 1: let's say, you know, you preprint the all of these
25:17
Speaker 1: entries and send them out. One of them has this
25:19
Speaker 1: pre selected winning combination that that dilutes the chances so
25:23
Speaker 1: tremendously that the chances are the grand prize is not
25:26
Speaker 1: going to go anywhere. But with a second chance drawing,
25:29
Speaker 1: you have a smaller prize, say like the grand prize
25:32
Speaker 1: is a ten million dollars, second chance drawing grand prize
25:35
Speaker 1: might be one million, and you select the winner from
25:38
Speaker 1: the entries that were returned, so it's guaranteed that somebody
25:42
Speaker 1: is going to win that second chance drawing. That seems
25:44
Speaker 1: to have appeased the town folk with their pitchforks and torches. Yeah,
25:49
Speaker 1: because a publisher's clearing house grand prize winner is the
25:53
Speaker 1: odds are astronomical, um Like the one thousand a dollar
25:58
Speaker 1: day for Life is one in six point two billion,
26:02
Speaker 1: um Like powerball is a is a great deal. When
26:05
Speaker 1: you compare it against something like that, and and pc
26:08
Speaker 1: H is pretty um, pretty tight liped. It's hard to
26:11
Speaker 1: get a ton of information about exactly how it works
26:15
Speaker 1: and and why it would be six point two billion,
26:18
Speaker 1: because it's not like there's that many people entering. There's
26:21
Speaker 1: there's no way that's happening. No, And I genuinely I
26:25
Speaker 1: looked so high and low and and the weirdest little
26:29
Speaker 1: crevasses of the Internet trying to get an answer to this,
26:32
Speaker 1: and I could not find it. The only thing that
26:35
Speaker 1: I can imagine is that it has to do with
26:38
Speaker 1: the number of entries put out there. But they're certainly
26:41
Speaker 1: not printing out and sending six point to billion mailers.
26:45
Speaker 1: They're just is it the sweepers like doing this thousands
26:48
Speaker 1: and thousands of time? Which it's possible. That's it's possible,
26:52
Speaker 1: because I did. I did see people say like, the
26:54
Speaker 1: chances are so high because they get so many entries.
26:57
Speaker 1: But what you're talking about is that would be almost
27:00
Speaker 1: every single person on Earth entering, which isn't the chance,
27:03
Speaker 1: which isn't happening, or every single person in the United
27:06
Speaker 1: States um entering seventeen times. I guess if you have
27:10
Speaker 1: some sweepers, hardcore sweepers, and enough of them it could
27:14
Speaker 1: drive the chances up that high. But it just seems
27:18
Speaker 1: like there must be some other something to do with,
27:20
Speaker 1: like the randomly generated number, something that has to do
27:24
Speaker 1: with driving up the sticks, because, like you said, power
27:26
Speaker 1: ball seems like easy. Straight power balls chances are one
27:30
Speaker 1: in two nine million. This Publisher's clearinghouses one in six
27:35
Speaker 1: point two billion. And the reason for this huge discrepancy
27:38
Speaker 1: is because they're structured differently. When you play Powerball, you
27:42
Speaker 1: have to pick five numbers from a pool of sixty
27:44
Speaker 1: nine numbers, and then one powerball from a pool of
27:47
Speaker 1: twenty six numbers. And when you calculate the um factorials together,
27:53
Speaker 1: which is our words that I put together, I think
27:56
Speaker 1: I combine them accurately, but I have no do what
28:00
Speaker 1: I'm talking about this point you have a one Any
28:04
Speaker 1: any combination you choose has a one in two million
28:09
Speaker 1: chances of being right because there's two d million possible combinations.
28:14
Speaker 1: It's very black and white. Yeah, totally understandable. Even if
28:17
Speaker 1: you don't know what factorials are, how they work, you
28:19
Speaker 1: can get that. But again with Publisher's clear House, it's
28:22
Speaker 1: like point A minute. How how is this possible at all?
28:25
Speaker 1: One in six point two billion, I cannot find out how. Yeah, well,
28:29
Speaker 1: one thing is for sure if you do win, And
28:31
Speaker 1: this was kind of uh, it kind of made me
28:33
Speaker 1: feel a little bit better. If you do win, Uh,
28:35
Speaker 1: they're gonna find you. And I thought this is sort
28:38
Speaker 1: of the opposite of how it would be. I thought
28:40
Speaker 1: they would be like, no, you gotta come to us,
28:42
Speaker 1: and we're really not going to make much of an effort.
28:44
Speaker 1: But they do. They find you. They will use the
28:47
Speaker 1: Private detective to find you and track you down concrete
28:51
Speaker 1: pouring in Private Detective Agency. There's a p and executive
28:55
Speaker 1: who testified during those FTC trials in the late sixties.
28:59
Speaker 1: It says they every resource to find anything any winner
29:03
Speaker 1: over five hundred dollars and um. Usually the winner comes forward.
29:08
Speaker 1: But I guess it's good to know that they do
29:10
Speaker 1: make an exceptional effort. Um. And you can't you can't
29:14
Speaker 1: have grown up in the seventies and eighties without knowing
29:17
Speaker 1: about Ed McMahon and Dick Clark and the Publisher's clearing
29:21
Speaker 1: House Prize patrol coming to people's houses with balloons and
29:27
Speaker 1: confetti and champagne and a giant check and knocking on
29:31
Speaker 1: your door with a camera crew like that was as
29:34
Speaker 1: much as of America as like a baseball and apple
29:37
Speaker 1: pie basically for sure. And like you know, people talk
29:40
Speaker 1: about the Mandela effect and the Baron Stain Bears effects
29:42
Speaker 1: and all that. Um, a lot of people associated Dick
29:46
Speaker 1: Clark especially but also um, I mean McMahon especially, but
29:50
Speaker 1: also Dick Clark too with Publishers clearing House. They never
29:54
Speaker 1: once pitched or worked for publishers in that body to
29:58
Speaker 1: this day people even by back then, I saw a
30:00
Speaker 1: contemporary article that was, like, you know, confuse them with
30:03
Speaker 1: Publishers clearing House. They worked for American Family Publishers, which
30:07
Speaker 1: was a knockoff also ran for Publishers clearing House. Um,
30:12
Speaker 1: they never once pitched for Publishers clearing House. Publishers clearing
30:15
Speaker 1: House has always had that prize patrol that shows up
30:17
Speaker 1: at your house, um, and that's always been Publishers clearing
30:20
Speaker 1: House employees. And they apparently are legit, Like if you win,
30:25
Speaker 1: they don't get in touch with you ahead of time,
30:27
Speaker 1: they just show up at your house. Or if you're
30:29
Speaker 1: not home, you're on vacation, they'll show up where you're vacationing.
30:33
Speaker 1: They'll show up at work wherever you are. They're going
30:36
Speaker 1: to show up with these camera crews and UM give
30:39
Speaker 1: you this grand prize. So that apparently is is legitimate. Yeah,
30:44
Speaker 1: And if you want to be a um party buzz
30:47
Speaker 1: kill pet ant along the order of uh, it's actually
30:50
Speaker 1: the um Low on the Totem Pole as the prize
30:53
Speaker 1: place to be, then just start floating that American Family
30:57
Speaker 1: Publishers fact to people that you meet. Is that right?
31:00
Speaker 1: Because I love that? Oh man, I need to I'm
31:03
Speaker 1: not going to be able to help myself. I think
31:05
Speaker 1: if I was at a random party, if this had
31:07
Speaker 1: never happened, and I was at a random party and
31:09
Speaker 1: said something about I told a great story about Ed
31:12
Speaker 1: mcman and Dick Clark and Publishers clearing House, and someone said, well,
31:15
Speaker 1: actually they worked for American Family Publishers. I don't think
31:19
Speaker 1: there's any way to frame that in a way that
31:22
Speaker 1: makes that person look good or fun. It's all in
31:25
Speaker 1: the delivery. You laugh along and be like that's crazy.
31:28
Speaker 1: But even get this, it's even crazier. Have never even
31:31
Speaker 1: worked for Publishers clearing House And everybody triple laughs on
31:35
Speaker 1: top of the laughing they're already doing. It just goes
31:38
Speaker 1: dead and you're left going. But I but I've framed
31:41
Speaker 1: it correctly, said it's been an engaging way. I said, well,
31:44
Speaker 1: actually with my finger up. Uh. And then I would say, yeah,
31:49
Speaker 1: but what about that Bloopers and Practical Joke show. Then
31:52
Speaker 1: everyone will be laughing again and you just slink off
31:54
Speaker 1: in the corner. I would, And you know that's that's
31:58
Speaker 1: my typical party behavior anyway. Do you remember that show though?
32:02
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, totally. Like it was called Bloopers and Practice.
32:08
Speaker 1: I believe it's all it was. It was. It was
32:10
Speaker 1: like the title was the description that was great. Remember
32:13
Speaker 1: they had the aragon Is cartoon guy who come and
32:17
Speaker 1: sweep the stage totally. Um, yeah, I'm pretty sure that's
32:21
Speaker 1: what it was. Fantasy Island. Do you know they re
32:23
Speaker 1: rebooted Fantasy Island. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't watch. It
32:27
Speaker 1: was supposed to be super dark. Well the first one was. No,
32:30
Speaker 1: wasn't the original fantay sild was super dark. I need
32:34
Speaker 1: to go back and watch that because I don't recall
32:36
Speaker 1: that at all. Yeah, like almost all the fantasies were
32:40
Speaker 1: ended up being scary and taught the person a lesson
32:43
Speaker 1: they should really like fantasize about. Well I was like
32:46
Speaker 1: four at the time, and and pick up on that
32:48
Speaker 1: it is, by the way, it is TV's bloopers and
32:50
Speaker 1: practical bloopers and practical jokes. Yeah, uh all right, let's
32:54
Speaker 1: take a break and we'll talk about the very very
32:57
Speaker 1: few sweep steaks that are in existence today. Right after this,
33:09
Speaker 1: I want to learn about as art college how to
33:11
Speaker 1: take the perfect. But with all about fractal getting kiscon
33:13
Speaker 1: that's a little hun the Lizzie Border murders that they
33:16
Speaker 1: kind of all runs on the plane. Everything that's we
33:19
Speaker 1: should know. No word up Jerry. By the way, Chuck,
33:25
Speaker 1: TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes has a five point three
33:29
Speaker 1: on IMDb, which is wrong. Really, Yeah, that was a
33:33
Speaker 1: great show man, And I bet you that dumb Saggat
33:38
Speaker 1: show has got like a nine out of ten. Well
33:41
Speaker 1: these days it's Alfonso Riberro is it. Yeah, I've never
33:45
Speaker 1: been a fan of this. They're okay, ridiculousness. Uh no,
33:51
Speaker 1: I never saw that. That's all it is. But it's
33:53
Speaker 1: much more like painful to watch, like skateboarders getting racked
33:58
Speaker 1: and just really dumb stuff. But it's it's mesmerizing, and
34:02
Speaker 1: somehow they have an infinite limitless supply of episodes of
34:06
Speaker 1: it because it is on twenty four hours a day
34:09
Speaker 1: on MTV. Is there really? Yeah? I think I told
34:12
Speaker 1: this story before, but I like to put it out
34:14
Speaker 1: every five or six years in case the person listening
34:17
Speaker 1: is this person. Uh is when I was at u
34:19
Speaker 1: g A one day and a guy I saw a
34:22
Speaker 1: guy completely busted on a bicycle on the sidewalk and
34:26
Speaker 1: his books went splayed out everywhere, and the very first
34:29
Speaker 1: thing he did was put his and he was laying
34:33
Speaker 1: down on the sidewalk, was put his hand under his
34:35
Speaker 1: chin and act like he was reading a book. Oh
34:38
Speaker 1: my god, it's amazing. And like, if you're out there, dude,
34:42
Speaker 1: please please send us an email stuff podcast at I
34:45
Speaker 1: heart media dot com because that was one of the
34:48
Speaker 1: best reactions I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, that's
34:50
Speaker 1: that's a sharp, sharp dude. It was pretty great. So
34:53
Speaker 1: before we broke, I uh was being coy about the
34:57
Speaker 1: very very few sweepstakes that we still have today, because
35:00
Speaker 1: surely these went out of style in the seventies and eighties. Uh,
35:04
Speaker 1: not true. There are about four hundred million the annual
35:07
Speaker 1: sweep steaks in this day and age, and that nuts
35:11
Speaker 1: that is And I'm sure that counts every dumb iPhone
35:15
Speaker 1: app sweepstakes to win ten cents, but that's still four million. Yeah,
35:19
Speaker 1: that's still a sweepstakes that you can go play, whereas before,
35:23
Speaker 1: I think at its first heyday UM in the sixties
35:25
Speaker 1: the mid sixties, the FTC calculated there was something like
35:29
Speaker 1: six hundred national sweep steaks and yeah, four millions, a
35:33
Speaker 1: lot more than six hundred. What's crazy is is those
35:36
Speaker 1: FTC um hearings actually tried to put a clamp down
35:39
Speaker 1: on everything and it didn't work and they ended up
35:42
Speaker 1: expanding and exploding even beyond that. But one of the
35:45
Speaker 1: things that has kind of um driven that, I don't
35:49
Speaker 1: know if it's it's got to be a chicken or
35:51
Speaker 1: the egg kind of thing, like has it been these
35:53
Speaker 1: people who are called sweepers or in the UK they're
35:56
Speaker 1: called compers, who their hobby is engaging and sweeps. Did
36:00
Speaker 1: they lead to this proliferation of it or did they?
36:03
Speaker 1: Are they encouraged by the easy access to sweepstakes like
36:07
Speaker 1: never before? What do you think? I don't know because
36:10
Speaker 1: I didn't know sweepers existed. I didn't know that there
36:12
Speaker 1: were people that would spend um, you know, sometimes a
36:18
Speaker 1: couple of hours a day, randomly or not randomly, very
36:22
Speaker 1: pinpointedly looking for and registering for all kinds of sweepsteaks,
36:29
Speaker 1: using spreadsheets, using their auto fill on their computers, just
36:34
Speaker 1: to enter to win, over and over and over again. Yeah,
36:38
Speaker 1: but they're out there, and it's a subculture that I
36:41
Speaker 1: I'm surprised there's not There may be a documentary about them,
36:43
Speaker 1: I don't know. I haven't run across any any mention
36:46
Speaker 1: of one. There's a really good Zachary Crockett article Zachary Crockett,
36:49
Speaker 1: amazing writer who I don't know if he still writes
36:52
Speaker 1: for prison Onomics or not, but just amazing. He of
36:55
Speaker 1: course did one on this subculture. But he said that
36:58
Speaker 1: like a good, you know, normal sweeper, somebody who's like
37:02
Speaker 1: a genuine hobbyist is doing this for hours and hours
37:06
Speaker 1: a day and entering up to hundreds of sweepstakes every day. Hundreds, Yeah,
37:13
Speaker 1: hundreds award like Christmas story, that's what they call them
37:17
Speaker 1: in in the I should say. So. There was a
37:20
Speaker 1: Slate article from two thousand three, and it had a
37:25
Speaker 1: lot of just blatantly factual errors, um or blatant factual
37:31
Speaker 1: errors and was really arrogant and like dismissive towards this
37:34
Speaker 1: this group. So it's possible they don't call them major awards,
37:37
Speaker 1: but that's where I got that from. But the the
37:40
Speaker 1: lingo was m A that they're after the m A
37:43
Speaker 1: big cash payouts, cars, boats, major awards that are not
37:48
Speaker 1: necessarily fred gila. Yeah, and it's um, it's still the
37:52
Speaker 1: same sort of uh, like we said with with social media,
37:57
Speaker 1: it's a little bit different how it goes, but it's
37:59
Speaker 1: still the same kind of aim, which is to build
38:01
Speaker 1: brand recognition. Um. You see major brands doing these sort
38:05
Speaker 1: of fun games, like a Jeep hit those tiki torches.
38:09
Speaker 1: This is sort of like a scavenger hunt. You had
38:11
Speaker 1: to go around and find these torches. There were clues
38:13
Speaker 1: on Facebook. You went a wrangler if you found all
38:16
Speaker 1: the torches. And that's good for Facebook, it's good for Jeep,
38:19
Speaker 1: it's probably good for tiki torches. But every you know,
38:23
Speaker 1: every department store on the planet has some sort of
38:27
Speaker 1: even very minor like here's a fifty dollar gift card
38:30
Speaker 1: kind of thing if you retweet this or whatever, Like
38:32
Speaker 1: those are just all over the place. Now all over
38:35
Speaker 1: there's a site called, um sweep Steaks. What is it
38:40
Speaker 1: called sweet uh sweep Steaks Hub? I think so. I mean,
38:45
Speaker 1: if that's not what it's called, it might as well
38:47
Speaker 1: be called that. I can't find it right now. Well,
38:49
Speaker 1: we'll see if we can call it out later. But
38:51
Speaker 1: I went to it today, and I mean, dude, there's
38:54
Speaker 1: a sweepstakes for everything. There's a new podcast out and
38:57
Speaker 1: they're giving away like Amazon all xa um just to
39:02
Speaker 1: just to generate interest and awareness of their podcast. It's
39:06
Speaker 1: like everything has some sort of sweep steaks. Like if
39:09
Speaker 1: you got a new book, give away five books? We
39:11
Speaker 1: should do this. You give away five books and then
39:14
Speaker 1: hopefully everybody's like, well, I didn't win, but that book
39:16
Speaker 1: sounds pretty great. I'm going to go ahead and buy
39:19
Speaker 1: that book. Or at the very least, now I'm on
39:21
Speaker 1: a mailing list for this publisher because I've just shown
39:23
Speaker 1: them that I like books enough to enter into the
39:25
Speaker 1: sweep steaks. Is that podcast? Let me ask you this.
39:28
Speaker 1: Can you listen to it on iTunes, I Heart media
39:31
Speaker 1: app or wherever you find your podcasts? Probably interesting? They're
39:35
Speaker 1: doing something right, Yeah, they are. I'm gonna find the
39:38
Speaker 1: name of that podcast because we can't. We can't mentioned
39:41
Speaker 1: a podcast like that and just just never give the name.
39:44
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna do a little researching while you tap
39:47
Speaker 1: dance for us. Okay, okay, one and a two. So
39:52
Speaker 1: uh yeah, at least four million sweep steaks today. Um. Now,
39:56
Speaker 1: the like you said, the FTC got involved. They held
39:59
Speaker 1: hearings and everything is on the up and up. Now, Um,
40:03
Speaker 1: you have to and and I'm sure this is all
40:05
Speaker 1: very much spelled out as far as like you have
40:08
Speaker 1: to clearly explain the rules and clearly explain your chances
40:12
Speaker 1: of winning. Um. And I'm sure that's very much mandated
40:15
Speaker 1: on what clearly means. They're not just like yeah, whatever
40:17
Speaker 1: you think is clear as fine with us. Yeah, Congress
40:20
Speaker 1: actually got involved in passed an act. Yeah and what night,
40:25
Speaker 1: Well when was that? Okay? Yeah, I mean that's that's
40:30
Speaker 1: what Congress does sometimes, right, But that's I mean the
40:34
Speaker 1: reason why is because there were there are a few
40:37
Speaker 1: cases that sort of troubled people, to say the least. Yeah,
40:41
Speaker 1: the they passed the Deceptive Mail Prevention and Enforcement Act,
40:45
Speaker 1: also known as the Sweepstakes Act, and there was one
40:47
Speaker 1: case in particular that really pushed everything over the edge. Yeah,
40:52
Speaker 1: this elderly man in his eighties, Um, he lived in California,
40:57
Speaker 1: and uh, with his own money, he flew not once
41:00
Speaker 1: but twice to Tampa to the American Family Publisher's headquarters
41:06
Speaker 1: to claim his prize money because if he got he
41:09
Speaker 1: gotten a mailer that said that he was already a winner.
41:11
Speaker 1: Apparently the actual label said final results are in and
41:15
Speaker 1: they're official. You're our newest eleven million dollar winner. And
41:20
Speaker 1: then if you read the fine print, it was like
41:21
Speaker 1: if you have the winning number. This man flew twice
41:24
Speaker 1: to calif to Tampa to collect on two different prizes
41:28
Speaker 1: because of mailer's twice and they finally said enough enough.
41:32
Speaker 1: I can just picture him on the plane and like
41:35
Speaker 1: telling his seat mate like what's going on, and then
41:39
Speaker 1: not knowing what to do quite frankly, well, yeah, imagine
41:42
Speaker 1: being the seat mate's like sea checks take this letter out, yeah,
41:45
Speaker 1: and you're just like, oh no, this is not gonna
41:47
Speaker 1: go well for this, Like what do you do there?
41:49
Speaker 1: Do you? I would, honestly, I wouldn't know what to
41:51
Speaker 1: do because that that hits me right where it hurts,
41:55
Speaker 1: which is uh to be kind and empathetic, but also
42:00
Speaker 1: to not let someone go through something like terrible r
42:03
Speaker 1: So I wouldn't. I would that that presents a real
42:05
Speaker 1: ethical quandary for me. Well, I think I think at
42:07
Speaker 1: that point you kind of say, Um, I'm gonna be late.
42:10
Speaker 1: I have to go to American Family Publishers headquarters before
42:13
Speaker 1: I come to the meeting because this guy, yeah, that
42:17
Speaker 1: and coronavirus. Right. No, really, I just don't want to
42:20
Speaker 1: take the chance of being next to someone going to
42:22
Speaker 1: pick up their grand prize that doesn't exist. So so
42:26
Speaker 1: they part of that UM, that Congressional Act is that,
42:30
Speaker 1: like you really need to be a lot more clear
42:33
Speaker 1: about the odds of winning. UM. You have to say
42:36
Speaker 1: things like no purchase necessary or another phrases buying won't
42:40
Speaker 1: help you win. UM. But the whole thing, from what
42:43
Speaker 1: I understand, the whole thing. And by the way, American
42:45
Speaker 1: Family Publishers is now defunct. They went under UM. Unfortunately,
42:50
Speaker 1: fortunately for Publishers clearing House, they got all sorts of
42:53
Speaker 1: free press because people used to just think American Family
42:56
Speaker 1: Publishers was Publishers clearing House. But they also got all
42:59
Speaker 1: the bad press too, because people would think that anything
43:02
Speaker 1: American family Publishers did. It was actually Publishers clearing House.
43:06
Speaker 1: So it was really weird. I think it is where
43:09
Speaker 1: like two alternate universes kind of came together right there. Now,
43:12
Speaker 1: which one was it? That? Uh, there was one case
43:14
Speaker 1: where they were uh they had the entree entry entry envelopes,
43:20
Speaker 1: the entree envelopes packaged in such a way that, uh,
43:25
Speaker 1: you could tell the envelopes where people actually did buy
43:27
Speaker 1: a subscription and where they didn't, even though they were
43:30
Speaker 1: both supposed to be entered, which very easily allowed them
43:32
Speaker 1: to just throw away the ones where they didn't actually
43:35
Speaker 1: buy something. Was that pH or the other that was
43:37
Speaker 1: Publishers clearing House And they were found their blood on
43:40
Speaker 1: their hands to them throwing away hundreds of entries that
43:43
Speaker 1: had no no check because again, remember what they're trying
43:47
Speaker 1: to do is get you to subscribe to a bunch
43:48
Speaker 1: of magazines or now they sell vitamins or housewears or
43:51
Speaker 1: something like that. Um, and if you hadn't sent a
43:54
Speaker 1: check in, apparently some big chunk of entries got just
43:58
Speaker 1: thrown away. Well, and they you know you talked about
44:00
Speaker 1: sweepstakes law, there was they did have to settle a
44:03
Speaker 1: lot of lawsuits over the years, uh, civil lawsuits from contestants, so, uh,
44:09
Speaker 1: you know there were people that were wise to it,
44:11
Speaker 1: and there were attorneys out there very willing to take
44:13
Speaker 1: those cases. I'm sure. Yeah, And I think over time
44:16
Speaker 1: part of it was because of that pre selected thing
44:19
Speaker 1: where UM people were like, what do you mean nobody
44:22
Speaker 1: won the grand prize? People really paying attention to that
44:24
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, and they would get sued and I
44:27
Speaker 1: saw that they they paid tens of millions of dollars
44:31
Speaker 1: to UM to settle some of these and fight some
44:35
Speaker 1: of them too. So but they're still in business, which
44:37
Speaker 1: means that they're still making so much money that they
44:41
Speaker 1: it's it's worth UM holding these sweepstakes not just to
44:44
Speaker 1: give the prizes away, but also to UM to uh
44:49
Speaker 1: to fight off litigation as well. Yeah. And one way
44:54
Speaker 1: that you can really kind of fight off litigation UM
44:57
Speaker 1: is by hiring what's called sweepstakes administra reader. Yeah, Like
45:02
Speaker 1: there are companies that will fully UM execute the contest
45:07
Speaker 1: from beginning to end. You hire that. It's like hiring
45:09
Speaker 1: a caterer. You don't have to worry about the the
45:12
Speaker 1: little stuff mushrooms like they're gonna do it all they're
45:15
Speaker 1: gonna come in administer it in a way that's above
45:17
Speaker 1: board and legal. You don't have to worry about the hassle.
45:20
Speaker 1: You just gotta pay them their big and uh and
45:24
Speaker 1: you're all set right. It's hard to believe that there
45:26
Speaker 1: are companies out there that do this, but there are
45:28
Speaker 1: so as as much as like they're like pc seems
45:31
Speaker 1: a little hustling. It is a legitimate sweepstakes company. It's
45:35
Speaker 1: not a scam. But there are plenty of scams out there,
45:39
Speaker 1: and in fact, pc H has to warn the public
45:42
Speaker 1: how to look out for scams. One of the biggest
45:44
Speaker 1: ways is that if you are contacted via email, phone, Facebook,
45:49
Speaker 1: something like that, um saying that you won a big prize,
45:54
Speaker 1: they're going that like that's automatically wrong because they send
45:57
Speaker 1: their prize patrol out for their biggest prizes and that's
46:00
Speaker 1: really legitimately. How you would find out is they show
46:03
Speaker 1: up at your house. Yeah, and you know these are
46:05
Speaker 1: all uh, they seem like no brainers to people like us,
46:09
Speaker 1: but to a lot of people they fall for this
46:11
Speaker 1: stuff and it's really sad. Um. You know, if you
46:15
Speaker 1: if you get anything that says you've won something, all
46:17
Speaker 1: you gotta do is prepay this tax any anything, asking
46:21
Speaker 1: for credit card information, any kind of payment whatsoever. Is
46:25
Speaker 1: one a scam every time, UM any time. A lot
46:30
Speaker 1: of times it's front. It's a front for like UM mallware. UM.
46:35
Speaker 1: They might ask you, like I said, for your social
46:37
Speaker 1: Security number, your credit cards. Just don't don't fall for
46:42
Speaker 1: that stuff. Don't give anyone information like that. No, and
46:45
Speaker 1: you will need to give them your social Security number
46:48
Speaker 1: eventually if you win any prize over six dollars for
46:50
Speaker 1: tax reporting, because remember taxes are a thing. But they're
46:53
Speaker 1: not going to get you up over Facebook messenger and
46:56
Speaker 1: tell you you want a prize, So give me your
46:58
Speaker 1: social Security number right now. The thing is is a
47:01
Speaker 1: lot of people who play this are elderly, and they
47:03
Speaker 1: are preyed upon, and there are a lot of scams
47:05
Speaker 1: out there. UM. I saw some figure in the tens
47:08
Speaker 1: of billions of dollars that is lost to scam sweepstakes
47:12
Speaker 1: every year in the United States. That's insane. It's an
47:15
Speaker 1: insane amount of money that's being lost. And let's just
47:17
Speaker 1: say it is super sad. So the name of the
47:22
Speaker 1: UM podcast is called UH The Authority with Brian s
47:27
Speaker 1: Arnold um. And what's sad is they're in week eight
47:32
Speaker 1: of their eight week giveaway sweepstakes giveaway, and so this
47:36
Speaker 1: will come out long after the eight weeks is up,
47:39
Speaker 1: so sorry about that. But there was a sweepstakes that
47:42
Speaker 1: the The Authority Project with brianess Arnold held to win
47:45
Speaker 1: a speaker. And you know what's interesting, this is not
47:49
Speaker 1: off off topic, but over the years a couple of
47:52
Speaker 1: times we've had a couple of dumb ideas like, hey,
47:54
Speaker 1: why don't we give away a thing to listeners for,
47:56
Speaker 1: you know, just doing something, And every single time, like
48:00
Speaker 1: the legal department of whatever parent company we had, was like, no, no, no, no, no,
48:04
Speaker 1: we're not going to get involved in this kind of
48:06
Speaker 1: thing because then it's a contest where like, well it's
48:08
Speaker 1: not really contest, it's just very low fly and they're like,
48:11
Speaker 1: you can't do that. You have no idea the kind
48:13
Speaker 1: of worms you're opening up. Yeah, because there's a whole
48:15
Speaker 1: branch of law called sweepstakes law, and it it involves
48:18
Speaker 1: following the letter of the law and also helping people
48:21
Speaker 1: sue people who are suspected of not following the letter
48:23
Speaker 1: of the law. Yeah, so as attorneys, they just kind
48:26
Speaker 1: of always squashed it. Um, So I just want to
48:29
Speaker 1: give a big shout out. We never said I don't
48:31
Speaker 1: think why people do this real quick chuck um. And
48:34
Speaker 1: there's a woman named Sandra Grauschoff and she is probably
48:39
Speaker 1: the world's leading expert on sweepstakes at the very least
48:42
Speaker 1: America's leading experts on on sweep steaks. She runs, um
48:46
Speaker 1: the balance is sweepstakes pages and just legitimately knows what
48:51
Speaker 1: she's talking about. And she just said it's excitement. It's
48:53
Speaker 1: as simple as that. That like the idea of getting
48:56
Speaker 1: a checker, Um, getting a prize affidavit in the mail
49:00
Speaker 1: is very exciting. Um. Other people have called it a
49:03
Speaker 1: high and Grauschof says, um, Yeah. It turns out, though,
49:08
Speaker 1: if you're if you're thinking about sweep stakes every day
49:11
Speaker 1: and how to play them better and all that stuff,
49:13
Speaker 1: you may want to get evaluated for a gambling addiction
49:15
Speaker 1: because it can kind of easily traps into that. I'm sure. Yeah,
49:19
Speaker 1: who knew gambling addiction would make an appearance. So if
49:25
Speaker 1: you want to know more about sweep stakes, well go
49:27
Speaker 1: forward and check them out. Uh. And since I said that,
49:30
Speaker 1: it's time for a listener mail I'm gonna call this
49:36
Speaker 1: how he helps somebody out recently. Hey, guys, want to
49:39
Speaker 1: say thanks before even telling you why. I honestly cannot
49:42
Speaker 1: thank you enough. My name is James twenty one and
49:45
Speaker 1: I'm from Glasgow, Scotland. Yesterday, while at work, I received
49:48
Speaker 1: a call from my dad telling me that my grandma
49:51
Speaker 1: had passed away suddenly during the night. Obviously distraught, I
49:54
Speaker 1: left work headed home to be with my family. I
49:57
Speaker 1: know that nobody enjoys crying, but I re really hated
50:00
Speaker 1: and as I end up with these uh as, I
50:02
Speaker 1: end up with these very intense headaches. Well through the tears.
50:05
Speaker 1: On my drive home, with your podcast playing through my car,
50:07
Speaker 1: I was able to laugh and to smile despite the circumstances.
50:11
Speaker 1: I couldn't, for the life of me tell you which
50:12
Speaker 1: episode I even listened to, just that it made me
50:14
Speaker 1: laugh and save me from the literal headache and the
50:17
Speaker 1: heartache that I was feeling. And for that I'm so thankful.
50:20
Speaker 1: I must have listened to around two or three hundred
50:22
Speaker 1: of your podcasts in the past month or so, so
50:25
Speaker 1: please keep doing what you're doing. And that is from
50:27
Speaker 1: James M. In Scotland. Sorry to hear about your grandma, James,
50:32
Speaker 1: and I glad we could help. Our condolence is James.
50:35
Speaker 1: But yeah, it is very nice to hear um. You
50:37
Speaker 1: know that we we can help people in times like
50:40
Speaker 1: that in some small way. You know for sure makes
50:43
Speaker 1: us feel like real big shots. If you want to
50:47
Speaker 1: get in touch with this, you can send us an
50:49
Speaker 1: email to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff
50:56
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50:58
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