Why Do We Keep Filling Out Survey Forms and Entering Raffles?

While sitting at a computer at the public library recently, a very elderly man next to me asked me for some help. I peered at his screen and saw something that looked like the typical gambling website - a bunch of glittery text and a big "WIN $1,000,000" banner. This old man wanted my help with filling in the form. He was typing in the form one letter at a time, one finger roving around the keyboard slowly. I'm sure it must have been frustrating for him to keep getting these pop-up error messages like "password must be at least 6 characters" and "please enter valid phone number." But I helped him and tried to be nice about it. In my mind I couldn't help but feel a sense of humor and irony.

He was using some kind of receipt to enter the data. While fixing his phone number information in the form, my eyes glimpsed at his date of birth. 1928. So this old man was trying his luck at winning this million dollar jackpot, when chances are even if he somehow won it there's a strong possibility he may get a heart attack from the sheer joy of it(he may have been trying to win big since he was 12), or not even get a chance to use half of it since they usually pay out these prizes over many years.

I mean, we're talking about an old dude at the library trying to win $1,000,000 bucks - you have to give him credit though, still stubbornly trying to win even into his golden years.

I thought to myself right then - I've been always trying to win those receipt lotteries also. Whenever I go to Taco Bell I always call up afterwards and try my luck at winning $1000 for answering survey questions. I've also entered many sweepstakes, and I always put in a ticket for those raffles they have at supermarkets for appliances. I've even entered in bottle cap codes and tried my luck with the scratch off prizes at restaurants. Needless to say I never won any of it. Companies use these as advertising and most of the time it's all calculated.

I roughly calculated in my mind how much each Coca-Cola bottle cap is worth. It's hard to gauge it, because there are some decent offers on their prize site. These would be the magazine subscriptions. For example I received a subscription(1-year) to Wired magazine. This was for 100 points, which is either 10 codes from the 12-packs or 34 caps. This seems reasonable for a magazine. There are also oodles of sweepstakes you can enter, from $30 gift cards to trips to New York City. Overall I would say each cap could be considered worth about a nickel for physical prizes like shirts, keychains. So you pay $1.25 for the 20-ounce and you're getting back 1/25 or 4% of your money back... no wait, you still have to factor in time. Log in the site, click here, wait a while, fumble as the cap falls, and figure out if the cap has a "0" or an "O" on it, etc. Overall, the big heads at Coca-Cola know it works well for them, and it's more advertising anyway.

But I never have paid money for a lotto ticket, however, as it is against my religion(Islam), but if I can enter something for free it's allowed. In any case the mathematical odds to win anything these days are just so depressing if you really think of them. Even with the little obscure raffles and sweepstakes, there's always so much competition, especially in today's tough economic situation. It's like someone throws you into a sea of blue marbles blindfolded on and tells you to try and pick the red one. However, there is a common rationale that spurs us to enter any kind of sweepstakes or contest of luck. It's that "you never know if you don't try" and "what if I somehow get lucky, what if things fall my way?" I guess it's always hoping like Charlie finding that ticket in Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

I've always pondered about what I would do if I somehow won one of these contests. For example, I've filled out online surveys for Wal-Mart that reward 5 lucky people $1,000 shopping gift cards to Wal-Mart. I've fantasized about strolling down Wal-Marts aisles, maybe loading my cart with 100 toothpastes to see what the cashier said. There seems to be just a little bit of penny-pinching from the Wal-Mart people, though, in offering people a tiny chance(nobody knows the exact odds) to win one grand, after spending around 10-20 minutes in a long survey. I mean, aren't they the richest company on the planet? Oh yeah, watching every fraction of a penny is what got them there.

It's funny that we invest so much time into drawings and surveys and whatnot, hoping that maybe one day we'll get lucky. We'll keep on doing it, I know. There's one person somewhere, about to win something big, but it's probably not me. I'll keep trying for at least a few years, but I sure hope that if I'm ever 80 I won't be spending my last few days trying to win lots of dough for my inheritors. Oh well, but perhaps I will renew my ambition to one day be that one-in-a-million person who makes it onto Wheel of Fortune.