R Kings and other car raffles

They have a Huracan Performante up for grabs now 😎

Assuming its on UK not NI plates whats the best way to keep the car if a handsome ROI person such as myself would win, move to the UK and work for a year then apply for VRT exemption coming back?

If it’s one of the northern raffle companies then just go up and collect prize off them!

Has anybody ever entered the competitions via the free postcard route and checked that they actually were entered into the draw?

If so, thinking it’s worth doing for some of the draws that have a long lead in time to draw date. For example some of the McKinney ones have over two weeks until the draw at times. And in particular worth while for the big prize draws that have high entry cost.

I see they ask for an unenclosed postcard that had to have all your details like name, address, email, phone number. Guessing to discourage people as they might not want that info visible to everyone via a postcard.

So my free postcard entry for the M3 also hadn’t been entered tonight, posted it over 11 days ago. Me thinks these McKinney guys make be breaking gambling regulations. Waiting for a reply from them.

Well I imagine this limit/cap is the max number of entries they mention for each competition. It usually only gets hit a few hours before the draw from what I can see and I know that it wasn’t met with at least one of the competitions I entered. Regardless, my entry was sent over 11 days ago and they couldn’t possibly claim they didn’t receive until say 1 hour before the draw!

Yes of course it would be impossible run it if everyone entered through the free route. The question is though are they then breaking gambling regulations that allow them have there’s type of draws in the first place.

They are only allowed run the business because of the regulations stating they must allow free entries.

I’ve emailed them for clarification on why my entries were not in.

I entered a McKinney competition once. They kept sending me unsolicited texts afterwards about upcoming draws. I did the unsubscribe on the message each time, but kept receiving texts even though I had unsubscribed. I Facebook messaged them to ask them to stop the unsolicited texts. They were quite ignorant about it. I wouldn't deal with them again. I think they are a bit cheeky.

I see McKinney's are doing a Villa in Portugal / £1 million competition. Its all over facebook and the papers and they even have that Gemma Collins from Big Brother promoting it. Anyone done any postal entries or bought any tickets yet?

Interesting.

Someone should do something about all these companies who are then running illegal unlicensed commercial lotteries, by not either having a genuine skill required to get entered into the prize draw, or that are not operating a genuine free entry route.

(McKinney’s question for this Villa in Portugal / £1m prize is:

What’s the capital of Portugal?

Lisbon, Moscow or Sydney

…… that’s at best, a £100 starter level question in “Who wants to be a millionaire” and would certainly be highly unlikely to be successfully argued in court, as being of the required skill/knowledge level to avoid the need for a free entry route, so as not to be an illegal unlicensed lottery being run for commercial gain.

It would be relatively easy for someone to build sufficient evidence, to prove the ones that are not complying with the alternative requirement to provide a “genuine free entry route” that would pass the “reasonable prospect of securing a successful prosecution” test and it would clearly be in the public interest to bring to task companies that are operating illegally, some on a vast scale (this current competition of McKinneys looks like a £6m plus criminal enterprise, if they are actively doing what you believe). Both of these, tests above, are the criteria that the PPS look for when considering whether a case should be brought before the courts.

Risky game some of these folks could be playing themselves.

Are you going to do something about it?

As previously mentioned on here, the "test" applied to confirm if the skill or knowledge required in any paid to enter prize draw competition is "sufficient", is (in layman terms):

Does it cause a significant number of people to choose not to enter, because they are "put off" by how hard / difficult it is.

Or do a significant number of people who choose to enter, end up failing the skill/knowledge part (" do they end up getting the question wrong"), and thus not making it into the random prize draw part.

If the "challenge" set to enter into a prize draw competition, is so low, that virtually everyone gets it correct, then it would fail this test. While the word "significant" hasn't been defined or quantified specifically by the Gambling Commission, its likely to be confirmed by any legal professional, that a number of less than 1% would not be considered significant. (1% being "put off" or "getting it wrong", would probably be on the very high side of any estimate I'd make in relation to these very simple questions.....a court could probably ask for an independent test be run on a number of the questions a company used, or ask for credible experts to quantify the real world "failure rate" and "put off" rates, if a company wished to try to make a case that they believed it to be higher). Basically, anyone believing that these very simple questions give them any form of "legal cover", if they are found to not be genuinely providing a "free entry route" which is your only other option to avoid being an illegal, unlicensed lottery being run for commercial gain, are only kidding themselves.....hence my previous statement that some of these company's are playing a very risky game with the authorities (Russian Roulette, perhaps).