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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To be annoyed about the tombola

44 replies

LittleDonkeyKong · 01/12/2022 21:23

Went to my small towns Christmas light switch on tonight. There was a tombola with 3 prizes left. I bought 20 tickets and not a winner. I had picked all the purple tickets which was the colour on 2 of the prizes. Lady running the tombola checked the few remaining tickets in the bucket and the tickets for those prizes weren't in it. I jokingly said I've spent 4 quid I'll take the prosecco and she said no I'll keep that for another tombola. Would you be annoyed?

OP posts:
girlmom21 · 01/12/2022 22:14

LittleDonkeyKong · 01/12/2022 21:48

@girlmom21 scouts but that's not really the point.

It is though, isn't it.

Things like that aren't really for the prizes. If they were, you'd have spent an extra £2 on a bottle of Prosecco on your way home.

Gagaandgag · 01/12/2022 22:22

SonnySideDown · 01/12/2022 21:40

DD paid £1 for two tombola tickets at a local fayre. It was on a guide dogs for the blind stall, the prize was a soft toy labrador so right up DD's street.

She picked a winning ticket and was then told that shouldn't have happened and they didn't actually have the prize for her. The woman running the stall didn't know what to do so had to ask the woman in charge if DD could have a prize!

I don’t understand

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 01/12/2022 22:24

I think it’s ok to keep a couple of prizes aside, and add them in once the prizes had started to dwindle a bit - putting in the winning tickets and new prizes later in the day.

Fine as long as the prizes are hidden until their tickets go in (although why would you do that - unless your table wasn't big enough?!); but the basic principle of a tombola is that, if you buy at least one ticket, you have a chance of winning any of the prizes on display.

It's not good enough to try to rationalise it that there are still some prizes in there - firstly, you could have 100 Mars bars and 1 Faberge egg as prizes (unlikely, granted!), so realistically only one actual 'proper' desirable prize; but also, you can't objectively know which prize any one punter would most want, and which may have been their sole purpose for entering.

You also can't try to make people guilty for wanting a fair chance because it's for charity - otherwise you should have just solicited straight donations without offering the lure of a prize to increase participation. A chunk of the income from Lotto goes towards charity/good causes, but can you imagine them getting away with if it were discovered that it was completely impossible for somebody/anybody with a valid ticket to win?

In this scenario, the woman running it should have handed over at least one of the purple prizes, if not both - yes, OP had technically not won them, but it would have been the most fair way of making good the mistake/accidental fraud. I wonder if those prizes would have been carried over to the next tombola (and still not won?) or if, more likely, they were carried to the boot of her own car.

VeggieSalsa · 01/12/2022 22:27

I bet she’s left half the tickets in the book, and put some torn off tickets on the prizes and the rest in the bucket. So all of the winning tickets are still within the book!

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 01/12/2022 22:31

I don't think I could get worked up about this. When I buy a ticket at a charity event I do it to support the cause rather than to win

YOU might do it to support the cause, but somebody else may purely have had a go for their chance at a prize (or, more likely, to support the cause AND to have a chance at a prize) - as is entirely their prerogative.

How about if it were one of those 'throw 6 sixes to win a car' stalls - where the prize is usually 'sponsored' by a local business' (i.e. they've paid the insurance premium against it being won)? Some prizes at charity fetes are really valuable - deliberately so to tempt plenty of punters - and I don't think it's in any way unreasonable for people to expect to have a chance of getting the prize if they participate and fairly win.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 01/12/2022 22:41

I don’t understand

Presumably, it was something like 'pick a ticket ending in a 0 and you win a toy labrador' and they had a selection of toys on the table with a number on each of them. The girl picked out #210, but they'd only got 20 toys as prizes, each numbered 10, 20, 30 etc. up to 200 - and they didn't realise that they'd continued putting higher-numbered tickets in the tombola that still would qualify the picker for a prize, according to the promised rule of the game.

Either that or maybe they had had her prize, but somebody had already swiped it from the table when their backs were turned, or taken the wrong one when having won.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 01/12/2022 22:42

I bet she’s left half the tickets in the book, and put some torn off tickets on the prizes and the rest in the bucket. So all of the winning tickets are still within the book!

It's astonishing how many people don't seem to understand raffle tickets - and never seem to wonder why there are two of each number!

LemonPledge555 · 01/12/2022 22:52

www.thirdsectorprotect.co.uk/blog/not-for-profit-raffles-do-you-need-a-lottery-licence/

I don’t know how to make this clicky…. It was looking it up yesterday for a raffle. Loads of info there.

if there was no way to win the prizes I’d be annoyed too, but more because there are rules and regs for these things, and I like a rule 😂

Purplepurse · 01/12/2022 23:24

There was a case in the papers years ago where a person had bought a raffle ticket for a car. Everybody had bought one very expensive ticket. When they drew the tickets,(in the interests of building up excitment)they awarded the third prize to the first ticket drawn , second prize to the second and the third ticket out was awarded the car. The first ticket holder took them to court on the basis that he had bought a ticket for the car but his ticket was not actually in the raffle when the winner was drawn. I have no idea of the outcome! I hope he won.
They could have still built up the tension if they had drawn three tickets at once and then read them in the correct order.

I would be annoyed in your case as well op.

ehb102 · 01/12/2022 23:25

Classic scam. Pricey prizes but the matching tickets aren't in the bucket. We have a very mean mayor once. At his ball the tombola table was loaded with bottles of scotch and champagne. Eventually one enterprising person bought all the remaining tickets. The expensive prizes were unwinnable. The mayor may have thought he lived it down but people never forgot. No one likes a.swindler.

Daffodilsandtuplips · 01/12/2022 23:41

SonnySideDown · 01/12/2022 21:40

DD paid £1 for two tombola tickets at a local fayre. It was on a guide dogs for the blind stall, the prize was a soft toy labrador so right up DD's street.

She picked a winning ticket and was then told that shouldn't have happened and they didn't actually have the prize for her. The woman running the stall didn't know what to do so had to ask the woman in charge if DD could have a prize!

Totally illegal. I’m surprised a big charity like this thought they could do this.

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 01/12/2022 23:53

There was a case in the papers years ago where a person had bought a raffle ticket for a car. Everybody had bought one very expensive ticket. When they drew the tickets,(in the interests of building up excitment)they awarded the third prize to the first ticket drawn , second prize to the second and the third ticket out was awarded the car. The first ticket holder took them to court on the basis that he had bought a ticket for the car but his ticket was not actually in the raffle when the winner was drawn. I have no idea of the outcome! I hope he won.

I think he was completely right to complain about that. Moreover, I don't know what the second and third prizes were, but it's not at all uncommon to have one big prize and then quite pathetic runner-up prizes, to add insult to injury (in this chap's case).

That reminds me of a case some years back about a tiny local radio station that was bankrupted following their competition to win 'a car' (might have been a specific make and model) - and the winner sued them when it turned out the prize was actually only a little Dinky toy car. The organisers maintained that it should have been obvious they wouldn't have the budget for an expensive prize like a car - and that the previous week's competition should have given the winner a big clue as to what to expect, as the prize had been a bag of chips!!

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 01/12/2022 23:54

Totally illegal. I’m surprised a big charity like this thought they could do this.

It was probably run by bumbling local volunteers, fund-raising for the charity, rather than direct employees of the charity itself.

Daffodilsandtuplips · 01/12/2022 23:58

The Prizes can’t be kept back or hidden to bring out later. All prizes should go onto the table in plain sight.
All ticket counterfoils to be detached from the raffle book, a strip of raffle tickets should be separated and not put in as a strip. They should be folded so the numbers are hidden.

MugginsOverEre · 02/12/2022 00:04

We spent a load of money on a tombola ran by my colleagues recently and it's surprising how hectic it can be running a stall on a cold, windy and rainy night. Winners can be missed and tickets can blow away (lost one myself!)
My own DD said later after spending about £4 on 20 tickets "Oh, it's 5's too? I was just looking for 0's. I wonder if I would have won more..."

Maybe the winning tickets had already been drawn and the winners didn't realise.

poefaced · 02/12/2022 01:45

She’s kept it for herself. Cow.

SheSaidHummingbird · 02/12/2022 02:25

Oh, the old ''I''ll save it for another tombola'' line.... It's in her car boot.

LittleDonkeyKong · 04/12/2022 18:00

Update! I messaged the fundraising chair of the scouts and he's dropped me off a prize this afternoon! Not the prosecco but never mind 🤣

OP posts:
inappropriateraspberry · 04/12/2022 18:08

Just been somewhere with a tombola. Two prizes (bottles) left. £1 a ticket or 3 for £2.
For a charity I support. Man said "Tell you what, give me £3 for all the tickets and you've won the last prizes!"
Much easier, and didn't have to even unfold a ticket 😆
Now have a bottle of red and big bottle of lager. 🍺

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