PTA raffle-all 4 of the Chair’s kids won the top prizes

[PTAcoincidence]

There was a PTA raffle at school this week to win Easter egg baskets. There were 4 huge baskets with around 10-12 eggs in each along with about 30 smaller baskets with a variety of eggs in them. Some had more eggs than others so between 3 and 6 eggs per basket. Lots of prizes, lots of happy kids at the Easter Fayre.
The raffle was drawn out of sight before the Fayre began with the dad of the 4 winning kids removing one huge basket from school before the rest of the baskets were even made up. Eyebrows were raised but you don’t cross the PTA mums I’m told.
Tickets were £2 each and approx 500 tickets purchased in total so a great fundraiser for the PTA. The chocolate was donated by the kids in exchange for wearing their own clothes as is the norm.
It is usually the PTA kids who win competitions, get chosen for the main
parts in plays etc and lots of parents roll their eyes and accept that’s the way it happens.
All 4 kids winning the top 4 prizes though? Surely that’s highly unlikely to be random and takes the biscuit? Or the Easter eggs in this case!
My dc won something and is very happy about winning so it’s not a case of sore loser before anyone accuses me of jealousy.

If this happened at your school would you think it was fixed or just luck?

YANBU = Fixed
YABU = Luck

They still should stick to the rules, though, as set by the regulations.

I wouldn't be happy about this. At our school, either the headteacher or deputy head draws the raffle and a short film of the draw is put on the school website. I'm sure this is partly to protect the members of the PTFA - if one of them did win a big prize fair and square, they wouldn't deserve to be under suspicion.

The people who run this kind of thing often end up buying a lot of the tickets themselves, I know this from bitter experience.

Over the years, I've won many a raffle, sometimes winning back the prize(s) I donated in the first place. Yes, you can put them back, but that can also lead to proceedings dragging on interminably if everyone keeps doing it.

But in your case I'd imagine these people give up their time and effort for the PTA so they can run a sophisticated scam targeting baskets of chocolate Easter eggs. Much more likely.

No it ain't. Not necessarily. Having said that, I think it's how it's dealt with that the clincher.

My Dad used to run a weekly event for a local charity. My Mum and Nan would attend, and buy raffle tickets mainly to support the charity, which was a godsend to the local community, not because they actually wanted to win a prize. They'd win a prize most weeks, sometimes 3 or 4. It was ridiculous, and they'd always hand prizes back or refuse to claim them. Why did they win so often? Because it was fixed because my Dad was the event organiser? No, it was because most people would buy 1 or 2 raffle tickets for 50p each, and my Mum would buy £10's worth and so would my Nan. They're just in a fortunate position they had more money and could choose to do that, rather than a lot of people attending the event, who by it's very nature didn't have much cash to spare. So my family won more often just because they bought more tickets.

It's the same situation now my Niece is in primary school. As a family we'll support the PTA loads, and so end up winning more stuff, along with the same familiar faces who also buy large amounts of tickets.

However I do agree that the draw should be made publicly at the event, and with full transparency. Last year we also won one of the many hampers of Easter eggs, which my Brother gave straight back. We won the PTA quiz and gave the prize money back to the PTA. Same as my Dads charity event, it gets embarrassing to keep winning raffles, so we make a point of doing the right thing, but it doesn't stop hecklers shouting it's a fix!

The school and headmistress wouldn't even dream of selecting any pupils for parts in school plays etc based on their parents involvement in the PTA. It's frustrating to know that goes on. Mind you, that might be because my Niece is such a bad, wooden, actor that it would completely destroy any nativity 🤣🤣

It's a very poor example your PTA leaders are setting that they're so greedy and supporting these events for the wrong reasons. It's very demoralising for the rest of school, and just perpetuates the strength of the inner-circle "don't question the PTA Mums" that puts others off and shores up the sides of their ivory tower. It's everything that's wrong about PTAs. We're lucky that my Nieces school is a rarity that it doesn't put up with any of that shit.

I can't believe the school isn't reacting to this. Personally I wouldn't contribute to the PTA anymore.

Even if it was just a coincidence that they won the fact one prize was taken before the draw was.done is incredibly dodgy but also the draw happening behind closed doors it totally unacceptable.
There are laws(?) Or regulations governing school raffles and they aren't following them at all

Kind of missing the point but who want want to win so many eggs?!

This was obviously fixed, draws should take place in front of everyone.

Yikes, we always draw the raffle infront of an audience. I never buy tickets myself so not accused of cheating. This is awful, I’d report to the school. A raffle needs to be conducted in a certain way and requires a small lottery return.

This does sound plausible to be fair.

How odd. Our PTA raffles are done in front of everyone. I also thought they had to be held under strict guidelines as it’s gambling? You could email the governors from a new email address outlining your concerns? It seems strange though that they would want so many Easter eggs? I certainly wouldn’t want my kids having TEN eggs!

That link to gambling commission guidelines says raffles can’t be online people need physical tickets

My DH was Chair of Governors at our children’s’ primary when they were there and my kids never won anything!

Yes this a good point, why on earth would anyone want that many chocolate eggs in their house?

I was on the pta we use to buy lots of tickets but so did everyone else so I rarely won. The only perk we got was front row seats at Xmas concerts (for dealing with tickets, selling refreshments) and parents complained about that!

Drop them off at the Food Bank?

Maybe they give them to extended family as Easter gifts?

Everyone loves to moan don't they but never offer to volunteer themselves!

I do think they should have drawn it in public but I also hate threads that bash the PTA - I know everyone thinks they are a Mean Girls type bunch of people who get special treatment but the reality is they are just the only ones who get off their arse and spend their own time doing a thankless task for the benefit of all the kids at school.

People were absolute arseholes to my friends when she and her husband chaired and ran events - lazy, entitled knobs who wanted the events and the resulting money for the school but absolutely refused to offer to support in any way, including just buying bloody event tickets on time so they then didn't have to take calls from whining parents who's precious little child would now miss things.

So you deserve the front row!! If others want it they are more than able to join the bloody PTA themselves!

Only one way to find out for sure, you're going to have to join the PTA.

The draws should be made publicly. Lots of schools do them in assembly or actually at the Easter Fayre.

To the question, maybe they bought a lot of tickets...
They would need to buy about 422 out of the 500 tickets to have better than a 50% chance of winning all 4 prizes.

I have volunteered at smaller PTA events many times but usually can’t do the bigger events due to other commitments. They are all ok but the usual cliqueyness.

In some cases that can be the more valuable donated prizes, which never come to general attention because they've been taken before the "Look what you can win!!" list ever appears

We had one summer fete raffle where PTA members or their kids won most prizes. It was very embarrassing. But I guess us PTA families bought the most tickets, as it was a paper ticket drawn by the Head raffle.
We joked it was our reward for the weeks of effort and day of hard labour in setting up, running and taking down the fete.
An online draw behind closed doors though, I'd be gossiping hard too.

We won the main hamper at my son's primary school Christmas raffle 2 years out of the 7 he was there! (Two form entry primary school with nursery, so 400 ish kids)! Definitely not rigged. I'd donated a couple of prizes, but wasn't involved in running the fair in any other way at all either year! (Unless one of us has a secret admirer doing the rigging!) Do you think that many people buy raffle tickets? I felt that actually the raffle was a lot less popular than other things, because it was mostly aimed at the adults. Many people that came directed their money to the stuff their kids wanted to do, so stuff where you had to do something like guess a number or like hook a duck, or a tombola with an instant prize, was much more popular than the raffle!

Who on earth ever does a raffle draw behind closed doors?

I was involved in the PTA for years and it was always the last thing we did on any event we ran, the raffle would be drawn by either a PTA member, a teacher, or an older child in front of everyone attending. That's the norm, surely? Whoever thought it was a good idea to draw the raffle in secret, and then rig it so their own children won is either very brazen or downright stupid.

There are also rules about having gambling licences if you are selling tickets in advance and not just at the event.