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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My

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Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W Chuck Bryant, Jerry's over there.

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Speaker 1: And you may already be a winner because you're listening

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Speaker 1: to Stuff you Should Know the podcast. I was going

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Speaker 1: to say, a version of the same thing. So, hey,

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Speaker 1: that's the that's the spoils of doing the intro. That's right,

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Speaker 1: you may be a winner, yep, chump sweep steaks. Yeah, man,

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Speaker 1: So I was aware of sweepers before that. There's this

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Speaker 1: group of people out there, Yeah, the hobbyists, people who

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Speaker 1: enjoy sweepstakes, and we'll talk about them later. Um. But

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Speaker 1: as I got more and more into like researching sweepstakes,

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Speaker 1: I'm like, wow, that's pretty interesting stuff. There's a lot

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Speaker 1: more to it than even that. Yeah. I have never

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Speaker 1: I don't think, entered any contest. Well, you know what,

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Speaker 1: I fully take that back, because almost every year I

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Speaker 1: entered the HDTV Dream Home, do you really Yeah, Well

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Speaker 1: that's like one of the big sweepstakes in the United States. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: I mean every year that I sort of remember. I

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Speaker 1: haven't had cable TV for a few years, so I'm

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Speaker 1: not reminded as much. But that's one of those Like,

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Speaker 1: I mean, have you ever entered have you ever seen

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Speaker 1: those houses? Yeah, I've ran across them during this research,

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Speaker 1: and yeah, they're very beautiful. Not only that, they don't

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Speaker 1: stop with the house. They'll give you like a GMC

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Speaker 1: yukon and like, here's half a million dollars in cash. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's gotten crazy. Now, you know, here's some Um, here's

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Speaker 1: a couple of snakes that are really exotic and expensive.

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Speaker 1: I think they do a green home as well. Now.

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Speaker 1: I think there are a couple of them and one

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Speaker 1: of them, I think the green home one year was

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Speaker 1: you know, saren By here outside of Atlanta. I think

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Speaker 1: one of them was at saren By. Yeah, there's one

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Speaker 1: that they gave away in the last year, so on

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Speaker 1: a merite island in Florida where I've been. Um. And

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Speaker 1: then there was one in I want to say Miami

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Speaker 1: or something, and I write about the person who won.

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Speaker 1: Actually it was written in the Miami Herald. I don't

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Speaker 1: remember where the house was, but they couldn't afford it.

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Speaker 1: They won and they were like, I can't afford the

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Speaker 1: taxes on this house. Yeah, that's what the you know,

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Speaker 1: growing up everyone's dad basically, well, you know, you gotta

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Speaker 1: pay taxes on that stuff, right was I would find

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Speaker 1: a way to work that out if I want an HTV, GTV,

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Speaker 1: Green Home whatever. But I mean if you all of

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Speaker 1: a sudden were like, I don't have fifteen thousand dollars

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Speaker 1: for taxes, and I mean I think that's the same

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Speaker 1: with game shows and stuff. Right. Oh yes, As a

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Speaker 1: matter of fact, Chuck, you can read all about that

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Speaker 1: in our chapter on the Perfect Prices right Game, which

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Speaker 1: is in our stuff you should know colon an incomplete

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Speaker 1: compendium of mostly interesting things book. That's right, And I

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Speaker 1: gotta tell you of I'm trying to think. I think

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Speaker 1: of all the chapters in that book, that might be

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Speaker 1: the one that I was the most jealous of. From

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Speaker 1: the podcast standpoint, what do you mean, like putting it

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Speaker 1: on as a podcast rather than being a book chapter.

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Speaker 1: I was like, oh, man, I still want to do

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Speaker 1: that as a podcast. Maybe, you know, maybe one day

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Speaker 1: we can. Yeah, I don't think there's anything stopping us

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Speaker 1: from doing that. I think we might want to wait

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Speaker 1: a little while. Nope, we're doing it next week. I

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Speaker 1: don't want to undercut the book sales. Well, no, we

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Speaker 1: definitely won't want but well, I mean, I think we're

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Speaker 1: totally fine to do any and all that one out

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Speaker 1: of all of them will be the most difficult because

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Speaker 1: it's such a straightforward story, but I'm sure we'll find

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Speaker 1: a way to plump it up. I wonder if that

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Speaker 1: would incentivize people to buy the book if we did

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Speaker 1: an episode from one book chapter and said do you

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Speaker 1: want uh, you want more? Yeah, like how many more?

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Speaker 1: How many chapters are there? Again? For yeah, you want

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Speaker 1: twenty six more stories? If you're reading, get the book pleasures,

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Speaker 1: especially if you put it all off chord in vaguely

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Speaker 1: hostile like this. Yeah, I think that's that's that's the

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Speaker 1: old publishing trick hostility, right, or assertiveness when Poe moved

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Speaker 1: a lot of books that way? He did so uh

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Speaker 1: oh yeah, you can order a book now, pre order

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Speaker 1: anywhere you order books, including indie bound and uh, didn't

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Speaker 1: you come with the bit ley If you want to

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Speaker 1: support black owned bookstores, you can go to a bit

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Speaker 1: dot lee slash s y s k b LM in

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Speaker 1: order it from there. Uh so that's our spiel, which

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Speaker 1: actually was organic. It's not at all scripted. Don't think that.

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Speaker 1: Um if if you did, then you obviously missed the

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Speaker 1: clumsiness in all of it. But we're not talking about

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Speaker 1: our book today. We're talking about sweep steaks, sweep steaks,

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Speaker 1: and in fact, sweep steaks chuck. The word itself, sweep

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Speaker 1: steaks is hundreds of years old. I think they found

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Speaker 1: its origin at least in the thirteenth century. Yeah, because

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Speaker 1: is back then, um they were you had steak in

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Speaker 1: it like you would buy. It was kind of like

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Speaker 1: a lottery. You would get a bunch of people to

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Speaker 1: throw in money for a ticket and it probably wouldn't

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Speaker 1: even a ticket, and some person would win and so

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Speaker 1: they would sweep the stakes. But it's not like that. Uh,

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Speaker 1: competition in the UK, a contest in Canada, sweep stakes

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Speaker 1: in America. Those are different because they are always no

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Speaker 1: purchase necessary. That's the differentiator, right. The one thing that

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Speaker 1: they have in common with those is that the winner

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Speaker 1: takes all. That's the point. There's like a grand prize

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Speaker 1: where this this one person wins the prize, you sweep

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Speaker 1: the stakes, right, Um, But that is totally different from

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Speaker 1: a lottery, and a lottery is self sustaining. So much

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Speaker 1: so that you fund educational systems with lottery proceeds. That's

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Speaker 1: how self sustaining it is. With the sweep stakes, it's like, well,

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Speaker 1: there's one person putting up the prize, but then somebody

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Speaker 1: else comes along and wins it. What does that person

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Speaker 1: who puts the prize have to stand to gain from it?

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Speaker 1: And that the answer to that question is the heart

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Speaker 1: of sweep Steaks, which is basically publicity. That's where they

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Speaker 1: came from. Sweep Steaks or like you said, competitions in

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Speaker 1: the UK, your contests in Canada. They were born in

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Speaker 1: maybe the forties fifties for sure, as a marketing and

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Speaker 1: advertising tool that some companies and salesman came up with

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Speaker 1: to basically move more stuff at the very least get

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Speaker 1: people interested in some item or product that would have

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Speaker 1: otherwise just been overlooked in a regular ad. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: sometimes it was UM and still can be very blatant

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Speaker 1: in that. Uh the there's a like a code on

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Speaker 1: a product UM, and you like, well, this has no

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Speaker 1: purchase necessary. But sometimes you can actually buy a product

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Speaker 1: that has a code that you can then UM enter

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Speaker 1: like a UPC symbolship. Then so sometimes you do have

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Speaker 1: to buy things. But uh, sometimes it is literally just

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Speaker 1: we have and it you have to be a new thing.

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Speaker 1: But oftentimes is a new product maybe from an old stable,

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Speaker 1: like a new kind of toothpaste from um Pepsident or something,

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Speaker 1: or coal Gate, and they're just trying to drum up

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Speaker 1: pr and a good way to do it is to

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Speaker 1: give away fifty grand and get people just in that

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Speaker 1: aisle of the store, right, and so have them say like, well,

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Speaker 1: I need some toothpaste. I normally get coal Gate, but oh,

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Speaker 1: Pepsident has a fifty sweepstakes right now, I'm just gonna

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Speaker 1: buy the PEPs in at this not too yeah, how

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Speaker 1: can I lose? And they hopefully from that point on

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Speaker 1: they'll keep buying PEPs in it. Right, So that's a

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Speaker 1: way to drum up sales. Um But you said something

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Speaker 1: that was really important. One of the things that differentiates

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Speaker 1: the sweepstakes on purpose from say like a lottery is

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Speaker 1: that there's no purchase necessary to win. And in the

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Speaker 1: United States, no purchase necessary is like just common vernacular.

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Speaker 1: Everybody knows that phrase. That came from what's no inn

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Speaker 1: as sweep steakes law, which is to get around rules

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Speaker 1: and regulations against lotteries in the United States, Yeah, gambling.

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Speaker 1: One of the ways that that they did that was

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Speaker 1: to create this other way to enter you didn't like, Yes,

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Speaker 1: if you bought this tube of toothpaste, you automatically had

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Speaker 1: your your entry form right there because it came with

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Speaker 1: the package. But if you didn't want to buy the toothpaste,

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Speaker 1: but you still wanted to enter the sweepstakes, they had

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Speaker 1: to afford a way for you to get an entry

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Speaker 1: form and enter without any kind of purchase whatsoever, and

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Speaker 1: then that entry had to be as valid or eligible

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Speaker 1: to win. Um, have the same chances of winning as

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Speaker 1: somebody who did make the purchase. No purchase necessary to win. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The other thing is sweep steaks will do is give

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Speaker 1: you and this has changed over the years obviously, but

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Speaker 1: give a salesperson a lead. You got to get those

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Speaker 1: Glengarry leads or you're or you're on the way out

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Speaker 1: the door with uh no job basically. So in the

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Speaker 1: old days, it was, um, let's say there was like

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Speaker 1: a sweepstakes if you bought a blender. If you didn't

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Speaker 1: buy the blender, but you entered the sweepstakes, at least

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Speaker 1: there would be your information to blender sales people that

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Speaker 1: would be like, well they were looking at blenders, I

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Speaker 1: know that much or else they wouldn't have even known

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Speaker 1: about this these days. Um. Obviously, like with social media,

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Speaker 1: that's a big way that it's done. It's all done virtually,

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Speaker 1: so they know that if you just click on something

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Speaker 1: to enter a sweepstakes, then all of your information can

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Speaker 1: be sent to whatever company that is. And that's why

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Speaker 1: you're gonna start seeing if you enter some like ari

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Speaker 1: I sweepstakes or something. Don't be surprised when in your

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Speaker 1: in your social media feed you start seeing nothing but

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Speaker 1: ads for outdoor gear, right exactly. But it's it's so

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Speaker 1: it's kind of updated for the century, but it's the

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Speaker 1: same principle. You're saying, I'm interested in blenders, please send

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Speaker 1: me all the advertising you can find on blenders. Um.

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Speaker 1: And that was how it was before, when you send

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Speaker 1: in your info by hand or put it in a

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Speaker 1: box in the store. It's the same thing now when

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Speaker 1: you enter to win an online sweepstakes and you share

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Speaker 1: your contact info like that. It's just now we call

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Speaker 1: it data mining and rather than the blender salesman getting

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Speaker 1: in touch with you to see if you still want

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Speaker 1: to Blender that you didn't win. It's some third party

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Speaker 1: marketing company that is getting in touch with you because

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Speaker 1: your information was sold to them. Uh, because you entered

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Speaker 1: into that Blender sweepstakes. So it's different, it's updated, but

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Speaker 1: the points the same. Sweepstakes are there to increase brand awareness,

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Speaker 1: to generate buzz or hype around a new product. It's

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Speaker 1: a form of advertising, um, and it's a way to

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Speaker 1: generate leads for sure. Uh. The thing is they were

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Speaker 1: huge in the fifties and the sixties, and one of

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Speaker 1: the reasons that they took off um was because the

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Speaker 1: Reader's Digest. Actually, yeah, read Reader's Digest, the little tiny

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Speaker 1: magazine that everyone's grandmother had, uh, and that you would read.

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Speaker 1: You know, laughter is the best medicine. And what was

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Speaker 1: the other one that was a couple of like very

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Speaker 1: kid friendly, regular things. The joke one meth meth meth.

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Speaker 1: I think it was meth myth meth all exclamation points.

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Speaker 1: Now there was another thing. It may have been like

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Speaker 1: true stories that were also funny. But I remember reading

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Speaker 1: Reader's Digest a lot as a kid, which is hysterical

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Speaker 1: because it's so not kid friendly. So the point is

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Speaker 1: is they go through and read magazine articles and then

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Speaker 1: condense them down to like abbreviated versions. Is just the

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Speaker 1: broad strokes, right, I think so, Like I never got

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Speaker 1: that back then, but I think it's sort of like

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Speaker 1: a a dummies version of the Utney Reader from what

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Speaker 1: I can tell. Man, it's so bizarre. Yeah, so they would, um, yeah,

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Speaker 1: what a weird concept? Is it still around? Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: Reader's ide just is definitely still around. I guess it's

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Speaker 1: like the antithesis of long form where they're just like,

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Speaker 1: we don't need all that stuff. Here's the main babe.

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Speaker 1: I'd like to get my hands on a reader's digest

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Speaker 1: and and see what it's like these days. And a

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Speaker 1: shawl nice toily because it gets a little so. Uh.

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Speaker 1: That was always the joke with growing up in my

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Speaker 1: church was whenever the keenagers, which is what they called

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Speaker 1: the old folks, it's adorable, um would have an outing

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Speaker 1: that the lady this one woman would get up and

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Speaker 1: say it, uh, you know'd be like July and she'd

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Speaker 1: say and remember to bring us weeater at the end

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Speaker 1: of it it didn't matter what time of year, that's adorable,

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Speaker 1: got to bring us sweater. Um. So and of course

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Speaker 1: that's a just to make fun of. Dude. It's so

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Speaker 1: funny you said, because I was about ten fifteen years

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Speaker 1: from now, we're really gonna backs against the wall a thing. Yeah, no, No,

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Speaker 1: that's not what I was saying. Okay, I was saying,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna get called out for a just offhand remarks,

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Speaker 1: I know, and we're going to be cold both because

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Speaker 1: we're gonna be old, bring us sweater. So. Uh, Reader's

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Speaker 1: Digest had a a form and they were very upfront

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Speaker 1: about their sweepstakes. Um, it was preprinted, it had a

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Speaker 1: number there and you could just fill it out and

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Speaker 1: mail it back. And Reader's Digest was trying to sell

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Speaker 1: subscriptions and um, you know publishers clearing houses obviously the

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Speaker 1: elephant in the room. Um, the big daddy of all

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Speaker 1: sweep Steaks, which is another weird, weird company when you

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Speaker 1: think about it, very especially today. Yeah, I mean magazine

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Speaker 1: subscription sales. But that's where the company started out. It

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Speaker 1: was a magazine subscription salesman who went door to door

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Speaker 1: and said, you know what nuts to going door to door.

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Speaker 1: I'm just gonna drum up are brochure and mail it

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Speaker 1: out to people. And he started getting responses like that

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Speaker 1: so much so that he put this company, Publishers clearing

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Speaker 1: House together and then when they became like a household,

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Speaker 1: word was when they attached sweep steaks to it, like

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Speaker 1: Readers Died, just to demonstrate it was so effective. Because

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Speaker 1: like with Reader's Digest or Publishers Clearing House or whatever, ultimately,

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Speaker 1: at the end of the day, they're trying to sell

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Speaker 1: you something like you said, Reader's, I just was trying

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Speaker 1: to sell you a subscription. They're attaching the sweepstakes to

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Speaker 1: it because they're they're using that age old lever of Hey,

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Speaker 1: everybody check it out. It's a big deal. We're giving

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Speaker 1: away a million dollars and also here's everything you need

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Speaker 1: to order as many subscriptions as you like from us.

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Speaker 1: Do you have any magazine subscriptions? Yeah, We've got Dwell,

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Speaker 1: which is no longer to my taste, like I don't

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Speaker 1: like current modern design in architecture and decor today right now.

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Speaker 1: But we also have one from L Decor. That one

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Speaker 1: is very much up my alley. There's a lot of

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Speaker 1: color and stuff like that. Um, we have Men's Health

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Speaker 1: and g Q, I think, which is not paying off

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Speaker 1: our lot because I dressed terribly and I'm overweight at

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Speaker 1: the moment, big time. Uh we Emily gets um. She

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Speaker 1: gets a few home magazines. I think like, like you guys,

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Speaker 1: we we both share our love of like architecture and

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Speaker 1: stuff like that, so we we like looking and fantasizing

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Speaker 1: about like these amazing places. That's why I entered the

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Speaker 1: dream home thing. Every year. I know, it's kind of

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Speaker 1: like a little mini vacation to go through one of

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Speaker 1: those magnor it's also fun to judge and be like, oh,

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Speaker 1: you paid a million dollars for that, you chump. Why

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Speaker 1: don't you get some taste? But did I say to

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Speaker 1: the magazine. What I'll never be though, is the person

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Speaker 1: on HDTV House Owners that walks through and goes she's

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Speaker 1: I don't know about this place, Look at that ceiling fan.

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Speaker 1: Do they do that on house Owners? Oh? People, I

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Speaker 1: mean it's all set up anyway. House owners, they already

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Speaker 1: have the house when they go on the show. It's

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Speaker 1: it's a big scam. But uh yeah, there are people

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Speaker 1: that say, like, you know this ceiling fan or this

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Speaker 1: wall paper, and they're like, that's really easy to change,

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Speaker 1: my friend, And the producers off camera, they're like, can

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Speaker 1: you actually like stick your finger down you throw them

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Speaker 1: and make yourself vomit. It will really really pay off.

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Speaker 1: All right, I think we should take a break and

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Speaker 1: come back and talk a little bit more about sweepstaks.

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Speaker 1: How about that, let's do it. I want to learn

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Speaker 1: about a terrosortic college, how to take a perfect movement,

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Speaker 1: all about fractalskiscon Hun, the Lizzie Border murders, that all

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00:16:08,800 --> 00:16:17,920
Speaker 1: runs on the plane, everything we should know. Word up, Jerry, Okay, Chuck.

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Speaker 1: So we've been talking about that h g TV Dream

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Speaker 1: Home giveaway, UM, and there's good reason because it is

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Speaker 1: one of the big ones, but it's also one of

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Speaker 1: the easiest to understand. Um. If you go and read

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Speaker 1: up on hd TVs Dream Home UH sweepstakes, you're gonna

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Speaker 1: find there's a very clear reason that they give away

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Speaker 1: this huge prize with all of this money and cars

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Speaker 1: and all this stuff, because I guess they build the

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Speaker 1: home over the course of like a season and then

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Speaker 1: they give it away, so part of then it right.

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Speaker 1: So they're generating UM viewers for the TV show, which

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Speaker 1: is supported by advertising, and the more viewers you have,

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Speaker 1: the more you can charge for ads. UM so the

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Speaker 1: sweepstakes is just basically being used to generate buzz for

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Speaker 1: the TV show now or vice versa, maybe both, but

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Speaker 1: the point is there. It's paying off for them, which

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Speaker 1: is why they keep giving this stuff away. But I

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Speaker 1: have a soft spot in my heart for this one

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Speaker 1: because they are one of these uh few giant sweepstakes

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Speaker 1: that just say here's how it's done, ask us whatever

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Speaker 1: question do you want? This is all very much on

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Speaker 1: the up and up. Yeah, and it's also, um just

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Speaker 1: a big advertising benanza period. So not only are you

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Speaker 1: getting that GMC suv, it's like frigid air and like

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Speaker 1: I guarantee, every single thing in that house has some

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Speaker 1: sort of sponsorship attached to it, like from the siding

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Speaker 1: down to the to the dude who poured the concrete.

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Speaker 1: You know, I'm sure they all donate that stuff for

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Speaker 1: in kind advertising. You know, that's a Tommy Thompson brand

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Speaker 1: concrete job. It's double stamped. But yeah, HDTV is very cute,

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Speaker 1: like they they have a um I think they actually

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Speaker 1: have a regular drawing, not even a computerized drawing, like

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Speaker 1: they do it the old fashioned way, right dude, Yes

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Speaker 1: they should. But I just had a stroke of genius.

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Speaker 1: We should get h G t VS Dream Home sweepstakes

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Speaker 1: to sponsor this episode. That would be great, that would

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Speaker 1: be full circle. Yeah, and maybe put your thumb on

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Speaker 1: the scale for one of us. Yeah right, you know. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so um with the with the dream Home giveaway. The

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Speaker 1: way that they hold the sweepstakes um is through what's

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Speaker 1: called a random drawing method where if you enter, you

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Speaker 1: can enter by mail, I believe, which is the old standard,

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Speaker 1: old fashioned standard way. You can also do it online,

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Speaker 1: which is far in a way the much more common

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Speaker 1: way to do it now do it. But either way

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Speaker 1: you're going to have your entry placed into a bin.

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Speaker 1: They have actual physical bins, like I get the impression

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Speaker 1: it's of fifty five gallon drum and your entry, your

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Speaker 1: physical paper entry goes into that drum. Or fit's online,

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Speaker 1: it goes into a virtual bin. And then at the

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Speaker 1: end of the contest, these bins have maybe like fifty

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Speaker 1: thou entries in them each and then they're they're sealed

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Speaker 1: off in a new been started and each bin's numbered right.

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Speaker 1: And then at the end of the contest they put

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Speaker 1: uh the number of ping pong balls is there are

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Speaker 1: bins put those in a lotto machine pick one, and

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden you have your bin number, And

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Speaker 1: now things are getting for real, are they not? They are?

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Speaker 1: And then uh, and I think that's what I like

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Speaker 1: about it. Two is the old school nature of it,

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Speaker 1: wherein like you're you're getting selected out of a hat essentially,

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Speaker 1: and you have just one a house. Well no, no,

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Speaker 1: not yet. Your bin has just been picked. You haven't

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Speaker 1: necessarily been picked out. You gotta tell them how old

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Speaker 1: school and low fi this is. Oh well, yeah, once

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Speaker 1: you get to the bin, I mean, don't they just

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Speaker 1: like dump it on the floor and literally pick it out. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: when they seal a bin, they give it a good

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Speaker 1: shake and a roll and all that. So that like

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Speaker 1: any so, so the the first entry isn't necessarily any

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Speaker 1: better off than the last entry. They're all mixed together

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Speaker 1: pretty well. But then yeah, they dump it onto the

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Speaker 1: floor and they take an HDTV employee, blindfold him or

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Speaker 1: her them, and push them towards the pile of envelopes,

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Speaker 1: hopefully without them falling down, although if they do, it's

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Speaker 1: on a pile of envelopes, so it's not too bad.

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Speaker 1: And then they just grope and grab one and that's

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Speaker 1: your winner. If it's a physical one. If it's virtual one,

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Speaker 1: a computer program runs through all the names in that bin,

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Speaker 1: and then the the the employee presses the space bar

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Speaker 1: and stops it. Either way, it's a random person picked

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Speaker 1: and I love it. You might as well be conducting

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Speaker 1: like a Catholic church fair drawing at that point, when

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Speaker 1: you have somebody blindfolded grabbing at a pile of envelopes.

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Speaker 1: That's the level that you're at. Yeah, you know. It

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Speaker 1: would make it even better, is if they is if

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Speaker 1: they did that, but instead of choosing the winner, they

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00:20:58,880 --> 00:21:03,160
Speaker 1: chose like five different names, and then they had those

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00:21:03,200 --> 00:21:07,200
Speaker 1: people come in and they had David Broms Dad's holding

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Speaker 1: up five match sticks with his hand in front of

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Speaker 1: the camera, and each person had to draw a match

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00:21:12,680 --> 00:21:15,920
Speaker 1: stick and the longest stick wins the house. Who's David

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Speaker 1: Bromstad Is he from Stranger Things? No, he's he's HDTV. No,

389
00:21:20,119 --> 00:21:22,359
Speaker 1: that makes more sense than he's the guy that's like

390
00:21:22,760 --> 00:21:25,160
Speaker 1: now covered in tats that didn't used to be covered

391
00:21:25,160 --> 00:21:29,359
Speaker 1: in tats. No idea wa see the trainer who recently

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00:21:29,359 --> 00:21:31,480
Speaker 1: had a heart attack, but now he's on this blood thinner.

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Speaker 1: I don't think so. He's uh. I mean now another

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Speaker 1: show he does is the is the Lottery dream Home.

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Speaker 1: Like he he gets lottery winners and tries to sell

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Speaker 1: them how or you know, shows them houses. I've never

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Speaker 1: heard of depressing show. Actually, yeah, I don't. We've done

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Speaker 1: one on lotteries before. But did we touch upon like

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00:21:53,200 --> 00:21:59,720
Speaker 1: how tragic most lottery winnings are? Uh? Yeah, I think so. Yeah,

400
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Speaker 1: So I can imagine that show has been of a

401
00:22:01,520 --> 00:22:04,320
Speaker 1: downer if you really think about it, it can be. Yeah,

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00:22:04,400 --> 00:22:06,680
Speaker 1: that's all I'm gonna say. Might have to start watching that.

403
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Speaker 1: I'm in the market for a downer TV show, So

404
00:22:09,960 --> 00:22:12,720
Speaker 1: thanks for that. Well, you would think a lottery dreamhouse

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00:22:12,720 --> 00:22:16,320
Speaker 1: show would be like nothing but awesome in excitement. But no, no,

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Speaker 1: I think sometimes just the way people like to spend

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Speaker 1: their money can be depressing. Yeah, I'm with you, you

408
00:22:22,320 --> 00:22:24,640
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. Yeah, I don't. I don't want

409
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Speaker 1: to judge if that's there. I don't want to yuck

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00:22:26,440 --> 00:22:29,199
Speaker 1: their yum their dreamhouse. YU. Sure. Oh I see what

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00:22:29,240 --> 00:22:31,800
Speaker 1: you're saying. I thought you meant like I just bought

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Speaker 1: one of the share of the Dallas Cowboys, so pretty valuable.

413
00:22:38,280 --> 00:22:41,840
Speaker 1: So that random drawing method is pretty um pretty standard.

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Speaker 1: That's kind of, from what I can tell, the gold

415
00:22:45,040 --> 00:22:48,919
Speaker 1: standard of sweep steaks. There's also one that's one of

416
00:22:48,960 --> 00:22:52,000
Speaker 1: the original ones, called the pre selected method, and this

417
00:22:52,080 --> 00:22:54,040
Speaker 1: is the one that was used to great effect for

418
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Speaker 1: many decades, and it's the one that UM Publishers clearing

419
00:22:58,240 --> 00:23:03,960
Speaker 1: House frequently uses to where the winning number is selected

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00:23:04,080 --> 00:23:09,040
Speaker 1: first secretly and held in in confidence, and then a

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00:23:09,119 --> 00:23:11,960
Speaker 1: bunch of numbers that have the same number of digits

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00:23:11,960 --> 00:23:15,679
Speaker 1: as that that winner, including that actual winning string of numbers,

423
00:23:15,920 --> 00:23:18,919
Speaker 1: are put onto mailers for Publishers clearing House and mailed

424
00:23:18,920 --> 00:23:21,800
Speaker 1: out everywhere, Which is why they can say you may

425
00:23:21,880 --> 00:23:25,199
Speaker 1: already be a winner, because you could conceivably be holding

426
00:23:25,240 --> 00:23:30,560
Speaker 1: the winning envelope because the winning numbers already pre selected. Yeah,

427
00:23:30,760 --> 00:23:33,560
Speaker 1: as a kid in the seventies and eighties, we didn't

428
00:23:33,560 --> 00:23:36,440
Speaker 1: really fully get that. We saw an envelope with Ed

429
00:23:36,520 --> 00:23:39,119
Speaker 1: mcmayl's Ed mcmail ed McMahon. He should have been Ed

430
00:23:39,200 --> 00:23:43,000
Speaker 1: mcmayl with his name and face on it. You may

431
00:23:43,040 --> 00:23:47,720
Speaker 1: already be a winner some fake check written out to you. Uh.

432
00:23:47,880 --> 00:23:50,280
Speaker 1: Sadly a lot of people thought those were real checks.

433
00:23:50,280 --> 00:23:54,280
Speaker 1: There are stories about that we'll um. So I didn't

434
00:23:54,280 --> 00:23:57,040
Speaker 1: really fully get that, but I guarantee you that the

435
00:23:57,119 --> 00:24:01,639
Speaker 1: people that that participated in these things new that it

436
00:24:01,760 --> 00:24:06,240
Speaker 1: was a pre selected winner and if you are lucky enough,

437
00:24:06,320 --> 00:24:09,360
Speaker 1: you and you gotta pay attention, because what they kind

438
00:24:09,359 --> 00:24:11,320
Speaker 1: of counted on was that most of these omalosts get

439
00:24:11,359 --> 00:24:15,480
Speaker 1: thrown away, most of these prizes go unclaimed. I think

440
00:24:15,560 --> 00:24:19,520
Speaker 1: that ten of the prizes, uh were ever even awarded

441
00:24:19,520 --> 00:24:22,439
Speaker 1: for those early Publishers clearing House sweepstakes. Yeah that was

442
00:24:22,600 --> 00:24:24,719
Speaker 1: not just no, not even Publishers clearing House. I think

443
00:24:24,760 --> 00:24:27,680
Speaker 1: this might have been before then. This was like Colgate,

444
00:24:27,720 --> 00:24:31,240
Speaker 1: Paul malo in U and oil companies and soap companies

445
00:24:31,240 --> 00:24:34,480
Speaker 1: and toothpaste makers were all like using this pre selective

446
00:24:34,520 --> 00:24:36,280
Speaker 1: method and they would get all of the like the

447
00:24:36,359 --> 00:24:39,359
Speaker 1: attention and all of the advertising, but they would have

448
00:24:39,400 --> 00:24:41,880
Speaker 1: to give out none of the money because the chances

449
00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:44,959
Speaker 1: are that nobody that the winner or the person with

450
00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:47,919
Speaker 1: the winning package didn't go to the trouble of actually

451
00:24:47,920 --> 00:24:50,720
Speaker 1: taking it back to the store, and so they would

452
00:24:50,720 --> 00:24:53,359
Speaker 1: get all the advertising without any of the having to

453
00:24:53,400 --> 00:24:56,000
Speaker 1: give up any of the money. And so um, this

454
00:24:56,080 --> 00:24:59,880
Speaker 1: actually got a lot of bad press. Um it led

455
00:24:59,880 --> 00:25:02,880
Speaker 1: to FTC hearings that later led to congressional hearings that

456
00:25:02,880 --> 00:25:06,199
Speaker 1: that created some legislation we'll talk about later. But the

457
00:25:06,280 --> 00:25:09,159
Speaker 1: upshot of it is that it caused companies that have

458
00:25:09,400 --> 00:25:13,760
Speaker 1: sweepstakes to create what's called the second chance drawing, which is,

459
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:17,360
Speaker 1: let's say, you know, you preprint the all of these

460
00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:19,240
Speaker 1: entries and send them out. One of them has this

461
00:25:19,320 --> 00:25:23,439
Speaker 1: pre selected winning combination that that dilutes the chances so

462
00:25:23,480 --> 00:25:26,919
Speaker 1: tremendously that the chances are the grand prize is not

463
00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:29,320
Speaker 1: going to go anywhere. But with a second chance drawing,

464
00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:32,520
Speaker 1: you have a smaller prize, say like the grand prize

465
00:25:32,600 --> 00:25:35,680
Speaker 1: is a ten million dollars, second chance drawing grand prize

466
00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:38,480
Speaker 1: might be one million, and you select the winner from

467
00:25:38,480 --> 00:25:42,119
Speaker 1: the entries that were returned, so it's guaranteed that somebody

468
00:25:42,200 --> 00:25:44,879
Speaker 1: is going to win that second chance drawing. That seems

469
00:25:44,920 --> 00:25:49,320
Speaker 1: to have appeased the town folk with their pitchforks and torches. Yeah,

470
00:25:49,320 --> 00:25:53,480
Speaker 1: because a publisher's clearing house grand prize winner is the

471
00:25:53,760 --> 00:25:58,040
Speaker 1: odds are astronomical, um Like the one thousand a dollar

472
00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:01,240
Speaker 1: day for Life is one in six point two billion,

473
00:26:02,400 --> 00:26:05,240
Speaker 1: um Like powerball is a is a great deal. When

474
00:26:05,240 --> 00:26:08,440
Speaker 1: you compare it against something like that, and and pc

475
00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:11,879
Speaker 1: H is pretty um, pretty tight liped. It's hard to

476
00:26:11,880 --> 00:26:15,040
Speaker 1: get a ton of information about exactly how it works

477
00:26:15,040 --> 00:26:18,199
Speaker 1: and and why it would be six point two billion,

478
00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:21,560
Speaker 1: because it's not like there's that many people entering. There's

479
00:26:21,680 --> 00:26:25,479
Speaker 1: there's no way that's happening. No, And I genuinely I

480
00:26:25,520 --> 00:26:29,160
Speaker 1: looked so high and low and and the weirdest little

481
00:26:29,320 --> 00:26:32,320
Speaker 1: crevasses of the Internet trying to get an answer to this,

482
00:26:32,720 --> 00:26:35,600
Speaker 1: and I could not find it. The only thing that

483
00:26:35,640 --> 00:26:38,000
Speaker 1: I can imagine is that it has to do with

484
00:26:38,400 --> 00:26:41,760
Speaker 1: the number of entries put out there. But they're certainly

485
00:26:41,760 --> 00:26:44,760
Speaker 1: not printing out and sending six point to billion mailers.

486
00:26:45,040 --> 00:26:48,440
Speaker 1: They're just is it the sweepers like doing this thousands

487
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:52,440
Speaker 1: and thousands of time? Which it's possible. That's it's possible,

488
00:26:52,480 --> 00:26:54,480
Speaker 1: because I did. I did see people say like, the

489
00:26:54,560 --> 00:26:56,960
Speaker 1: chances are so high because they get so many entries.

490
00:26:57,200 --> 00:27:00,720
Speaker 1: But what you're talking about is that would be almost

491
00:27:00,760 --> 00:27:03,680
Speaker 1: every single person on Earth entering, which isn't the chance,

492
00:27:03,840 --> 00:27:06,520
Speaker 1: which isn't happening, or every single person in the United

493
00:27:06,560 --> 00:27:10,720
Speaker 1: States um entering seventeen times. I guess if you have

494
00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:14,280
Speaker 1: some sweepers, hardcore sweepers, and enough of them it could

495
00:27:14,359 --> 00:27:18,439
Speaker 1: drive the chances up that high. But it just seems

496
00:27:18,440 --> 00:27:20,679
Speaker 1: like there must be some other something to do with,

497
00:27:20,720 --> 00:27:24,240
Speaker 1: like the randomly generated number, something that has to do

498
00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:26,600
Speaker 1: with driving up the sticks, because, like you said, power

499
00:27:26,600 --> 00:27:30,399
Speaker 1: ball seems like easy. Straight power balls chances are one

500
00:27:30,440 --> 00:27:35,000
Speaker 1: in two nine million. This Publisher's clearinghouses one in six

501
00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:38,760
Speaker 1: point two billion. And the reason for this huge discrepancy

502
00:27:38,840 --> 00:27:42,439
Speaker 1: is because they're structured differently. When you play Powerball, you

503
00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:44,679
Speaker 1: have to pick five numbers from a pool of sixty

504
00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:47,000
Speaker 1: nine numbers, and then one powerball from a pool of

505
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:52,399
Speaker 1: twenty six numbers. And when you calculate the um factorials together,

506
00:27:53,600 --> 00:27:56,840
Speaker 1: which is our words that I put together, I think

507
00:27:56,880 --> 00:28:00,200
Speaker 1: I combine them accurately, but I have no do what

508
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:04,639
Speaker 1: I'm talking about this point you have a one Any

509
00:28:04,760 --> 00:28:09,320
Speaker 1: any combination you choose has a one in two million

510
00:28:09,400 --> 00:28:13,760
Speaker 1: chances of being right because there's two d million possible combinations.

511
00:28:14,119 --> 00:28:17,080
Speaker 1: It's very black and white. Yeah, totally understandable. Even if

512
00:28:17,080 --> 00:28:19,720
Speaker 1: you don't know what factorials are, how they work, you

513
00:28:19,760 --> 00:28:22,120
Speaker 1: can get that. But again with Publisher's clear House, it's

514
00:28:22,119 --> 00:28:25,560
Speaker 1: like point A minute. How how is this possible at all?

515
00:28:25,640 --> 00:28:29,280
Speaker 1: One in six point two billion, I cannot find out how. Yeah, well,

516
00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:31,080
Speaker 1: one thing is for sure if you do win, And

517
00:28:31,080 --> 00:28:33,080
Speaker 1: this was kind of uh, it kind of made me

518
00:28:33,119 --> 00:28:35,920
Speaker 1: feel a little bit better. If you do win, Uh,

519
00:28:35,960 --> 00:28:38,400
Speaker 1: they're gonna find you. And I thought this is sort

520
00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:40,680
Speaker 1: of the opposite of how it would be. I thought

521
00:28:40,680 --> 00:28:42,160
Speaker 1: they would be like, no, you gotta come to us,

522
00:28:42,160 --> 00:28:43,880
Speaker 1: and we're really not going to make much of an effort.

523
00:28:44,440 --> 00:28:47,200
Speaker 1: But they do. They find you. They will use the

524
00:28:47,280 --> 00:28:51,560
Speaker 1: Private detective to find you and track you down concrete

525
00:28:51,560 --> 00:28:55,000
Speaker 1: pouring in Private Detective Agency. There's a p and executive

526
00:28:55,040 --> 00:28:59,160
Speaker 1: who testified during those FTC trials in the late sixties.

527
00:28:59,200 --> 00:29:03,320
Speaker 1: It says they every resource to find anything any winner

528
00:29:03,360 --> 00:29:08,080
Speaker 1: over five hundred dollars and um. Usually the winner comes forward.

529
00:29:08,480 --> 00:29:10,000
Speaker 1: But I guess it's good to know that they do

530
00:29:10,080 --> 00:29:14,720
Speaker 1: make an exceptional effort. Um. And you can't you can't

531
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:17,800
Speaker 1: have grown up in the seventies and eighties without knowing

532
00:29:17,920 --> 00:29:21,960
Speaker 1: about Ed McMahon and Dick Clark and the Publisher's clearing

533
00:29:21,960 --> 00:29:26,920
Speaker 1: House Prize patrol coming to people's houses with balloons and

534
00:29:27,000 --> 00:29:31,000
Speaker 1: confetti and champagne and a giant check and knocking on

535
00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:34,040
Speaker 1: your door with a camera crew like that was as

536
00:29:34,120 --> 00:29:37,280
Speaker 1: much as of America as like a baseball and apple

537
00:29:37,320 --> 00:29:40,000
Speaker 1: pie basically for sure. And like you know, people talk

538
00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:42,800
Speaker 1: about the Mandela effect and the Baron Stain Bears effects

539
00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:46,600
Speaker 1: and all that. Um, a lot of people associated Dick

540
00:29:46,680 --> 00:29:50,080
Speaker 1: Clark especially but also um, I mean McMahon especially, but

541
00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:53,880
Speaker 1: also Dick Clark too with Publishers clearing House. They never

542
00:29:54,080 --> 00:29:58,040
Speaker 1: once pitched or worked for publishers in that body to

543
00:29:58,160 --> 00:30:00,680
Speaker 1: this day people even by back then, I saw a

544
00:30:00,720 --> 00:30:03,600
Speaker 1: contemporary article that was, like, you know, confuse them with

545
00:30:03,640 --> 00:30:07,920
Speaker 1: Publishers clearing House. They worked for American Family Publishers, which

546
00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:12,040
Speaker 1: was a knockoff also ran for Publishers clearing House. Um,

547
00:30:12,080 --> 00:30:15,640
Speaker 1: they never once pitched for Publishers clearing House. Publishers clearing

548
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:17,880
Speaker 1: House has always had that prize patrol that shows up

549
00:30:17,880 --> 00:30:20,920
Speaker 1: at your house, um, and that's always been Publishers clearing

550
00:30:20,920 --> 00:30:24,760
Speaker 1: House employees. And they apparently are legit, Like if you win,

551
00:30:25,280 --> 00:30:27,040
Speaker 1: they don't get in touch with you ahead of time,

552
00:30:27,240 --> 00:30:29,600
Speaker 1: they just show up at your house. Or if you're

553
00:30:29,640 --> 00:30:32,880
Speaker 1: not home, you're on vacation, they'll show up where you're vacationing.

554
00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:36,040
Speaker 1: They'll show up at work wherever you are. They're going

555
00:30:36,080 --> 00:30:39,680
Speaker 1: to show up with these camera crews and UM give

556
00:30:39,720 --> 00:30:44,200
Speaker 1: you this grand prize. So that apparently is is legitimate. Yeah,

557
00:30:44,200 --> 00:30:47,320
Speaker 1: And if you want to be a um party buzz

558
00:30:47,360 --> 00:30:50,680
Speaker 1: kill pet ant along the order of uh, it's actually

559
00:30:50,840 --> 00:30:53,680
Speaker 1: the um Low on the Totem Pole as the prize

560
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:57,240
Speaker 1: place to be, then just start floating that American Family

561
00:30:57,240 --> 00:30:59,920
Speaker 1: Publishers fact to people that you meet. Is that right?

562
00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:03,640
Speaker 1: Because I love that? Oh man, I need to I'm

563
00:31:03,680 --> 00:31:05,960
Speaker 1: not going to be able to help myself. I think

564
00:31:05,960 --> 00:31:07,520
Speaker 1: if I was at a random party, if this had

565
00:31:07,560 --> 00:31:09,920
Speaker 1: never happened, and I was at a random party and

566
00:31:09,920 --> 00:31:12,600
Speaker 1: said something about I told a great story about Ed

567
00:31:12,640 --> 00:31:15,200
Speaker 1: mcman and Dick Clark and Publishers clearing House, and someone said, well,

568
00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:19,760
Speaker 1: actually they worked for American Family Publishers. I don't think

569
00:31:19,800 --> 00:31:22,040
Speaker 1: there's any way to frame that in a way that

570
00:31:22,080 --> 00:31:25,240
Speaker 1: makes that person look good or fun. It's all in

571
00:31:25,280 --> 00:31:28,720
Speaker 1: the delivery. You laugh along and be like that's crazy.

572
00:31:28,760 --> 00:31:31,600
Speaker 1: But even get this, it's even crazier. Have never even

573
00:31:31,640 --> 00:31:35,040
Speaker 1: worked for Publishers clearing House And everybody triple laughs on

574
00:31:35,120 --> 00:31:38,320
Speaker 1: top of the laughing they're already doing. It just goes

575
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:41,840
Speaker 1: dead and you're left going. But I but I've framed

576
00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:44,760
Speaker 1: it correctly, said it's been an engaging way. I said, well,

577
00:31:44,800 --> 00:31:49,760
Speaker 1: actually with my finger up. Uh. And then I would say, yeah,

578
00:31:49,800 --> 00:31:52,120
Speaker 1: but what about that Bloopers and Practical Joke show. Then

579
00:31:52,120 --> 00:31:54,920
Speaker 1: everyone will be laughing again and you just slink off

580
00:31:54,920 --> 00:31:58,560
Speaker 1: in the corner. I would, And you know that's that's

581
00:31:58,600 --> 00:32:02,040
Speaker 1: my typical party behavior anyway. Do you remember that show though?

582
00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:07,560
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, totally. Like it was called Bloopers and Practice.

583
00:32:08,040 --> 00:32:10,280
Speaker 1: I believe it's all it was. It was. It was

584
00:32:10,320 --> 00:32:13,080
Speaker 1: like the title was the description that was great. Remember

585
00:32:13,080 --> 00:32:17,520
Speaker 1: they had the aragon Is cartoon guy who come and

586
00:32:17,600 --> 00:32:21,280
Speaker 1: sweep the stage totally. Um, yeah, I'm pretty sure that's

587
00:32:21,320 --> 00:32:23,400
Speaker 1: what it was. Fantasy Island. Do you know they re

588
00:32:23,600 --> 00:32:26,960
Speaker 1: rebooted Fantasy Island. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't watch. It

589
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:30,560
Speaker 1: was supposed to be super dark. Well the first one was. No,

590
00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:34,680
Speaker 1: wasn't the original fantay sild was super dark. I need

591
00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:36,360
Speaker 1: to go back and watch that because I don't recall

592
00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:40,200
Speaker 1: that at all. Yeah, like almost all the fantasies were

593
00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:43,240
Speaker 1: ended up being scary and taught the person a lesson

594
00:32:43,600 --> 00:32:46,480
Speaker 1: they should really like fantasize about. Well I was like

595
00:32:46,520 --> 00:32:48,120
Speaker 1: four at the time, and and pick up on that

596
00:32:48,440 --> 00:32:50,560
Speaker 1: it is, by the way, it is TV's bloopers and

597
00:32:50,600 --> 00:32:54,080
Speaker 1: practical bloopers and practical jokes. Yeah, uh all right, let's

598
00:32:54,080 --> 00:32:57,080
Speaker 1: take a break and we'll talk about the very very

599
00:32:57,120 --> 00:32:59,840
Speaker 1: few sweep steaks that are in existence today. Right after this,

600
00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:11,520
Speaker 1: I want to learn about as art college how to

601
00:33:11,560 --> 00:33:13,840
Speaker 1: take the perfect. But with all about fractal getting kiscon

602
00:33:13,960 --> 00:33:15,960
Speaker 1: that's a little hun the Lizzie Border murders that they

603
00:33:16,040 --> 00:33:19,840
Speaker 1: kind of all runs on the plane. Everything that's we

604
00:33:19,880 --> 00:33:25,760
Speaker 1: should know. No word up Jerry. By the way, Chuck,

605
00:33:25,840 --> 00:33:29,080
Speaker 1: TV's Bloopers and Practical Jokes has a five point three

606
00:33:29,280 --> 00:33:33,080
Speaker 1: on IMDb, which is wrong. Really, Yeah, that was a

607
00:33:33,120 --> 00:33:38,200
Speaker 1: great show man, And I bet you that dumb Saggat

608
00:33:38,200 --> 00:33:41,680
Speaker 1: show has got like a nine out of ten. Well

609
00:33:41,720 --> 00:33:45,560
Speaker 1: these days it's Alfonso Riberro is it. Yeah, I've never

610
00:33:45,600 --> 00:33:51,240
Speaker 1: been a fan of this. They're okay, ridiculousness. Uh no,

611
00:33:51,400 --> 00:33:53,640
Speaker 1: I never saw that. That's all it is. But it's

612
00:33:53,720 --> 00:33:58,080
Speaker 1: much more like painful to watch, like skateboarders getting racked

613
00:33:58,080 --> 00:34:02,280
Speaker 1: and just really dumb stuff. But it's it's mesmerizing, and

614
00:34:02,360 --> 00:34:06,479
Speaker 1: somehow they have an infinite limitless supply of episodes of

615
00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:09,120
Speaker 1: it because it is on twenty four hours a day

616
00:34:09,120 --> 00:34:12,319
Speaker 1: on MTV. Is there really? Yeah? I think I told

617
00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:14,160
Speaker 1: this story before, but I like to put it out

618
00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:16,920
Speaker 1: every five or six years in case the person listening

619
00:34:17,080 --> 00:34:19,840
Speaker 1: is this person. Uh is when I was at u

620
00:34:19,920 --> 00:34:22,080
Speaker 1: g A one day and a guy I saw a

621
00:34:22,120 --> 00:34:26,560
Speaker 1: guy completely busted on a bicycle on the sidewalk and

622
00:34:26,640 --> 00:34:29,920
Speaker 1: his books went splayed out everywhere, and the very first

623
00:34:29,920 --> 00:34:33,520
Speaker 1: thing he did was put his and he was laying

624
00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:35,759
Speaker 1: down on the sidewalk, was put his hand under his

625
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:38,240
Speaker 1: chin and act like he was reading a book. Oh

626
00:34:38,320 --> 00:34:41,920
Speaker 1: my god, it's amazing. And like, if you're out there, dude,

627
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:45,920
Speaker 1: please please send us an email stuff podcast at I

628
00:34:45,960 --> 00:34:48,040
Speaker 1: heart media dot com because that was one of the

629
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:50,040
Speaker 1: best reactions I've ever seen in my life. Yeah, that's

630
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:53,719
Speaker 1: that's a sharp, sharp dude. It was pretty great. So

631
00:34:53,880 --> 00:34:56,960
Speaker 1: before we broke, I uh was being coy about the

632
00:34:57,120 --> 00:35:00,279
Speaker 1: very very few sweepstakes that we still have today, because

633
00:35:00,320 --> 00:35:03,919
Speaker 1: surely these went out of style in the seventies and eighties. Uh,

634
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:07,320
Speaker 1: not true. There are about four hundred million the annual

635
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:11,040
Speaker 1: sweep steaks in this day and age, and that nuts

636
00:35:11,080 --> 00:35:15,160
Speaker 1: that is And I'm sure that counts every dumb iPhone

637
00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:19,839
Speaker 1: app sweepstakes to win ten cents, but that's still four million. Yeah,

638
00:35:19,880 --> 00:35:22,640
Speaker 1: that's still a sweepstakes that you can go play, whereas before,

639
00:35:23,000 --> 00:35:25,840
Speaker 1: I think at its first heyday UM in the sixties

640
00:35:25,840 --> 00:35:29,120
Speaker 1: the mid sixties, the FTC calculated there was something like

641
00:35:29,239 --> 00:35:33,279
Speaker 1: six hundred national sweep steaks and yeah, four millions, a

642
00:35:33,280 --> 00:35:35,959
Speaker 1: lot more than six hundred. What's crazy is is those

643
00:35:36,040 --> 00:35:39,319
Speaker 1: FTC um hearings actually tried to put a clamp down

644
00:35:39,360 --> 00:35:42,040
Speaker 1: on everything and it didn't work and they ended up

645
00:35:42,080 --> 00:35:45,200
Speaker 1: expanding and exploding even beyond that. But one of the

646
00:35:45,239 --> 00:35:49,879
Speaker 1: things that has kind of um driven that, I don't

647
00:35:49,920 --> 00:35:51,560
Speaker 1: know if it's it's got to be a chicken or

648
00:35:51,600 --> 00:35:53,879
Speaker 1: the egg kind of thing, like has it been these

649
00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:56,719
Speaker 1: people who are called sweepers or in the UK they're

650
00:35:56,719 --> 00:36:00,560
Speaker 1: called compers, who their hobby is engaging and sweeps. Did

651
00:36:00,560 --> 00:36:03,680
Speaker 1: they lead to this proliferation of it or did they?

652
00:36:03,719 --> 00:36:07,360
Speaker 1: Are they encouraged by the easy access to sweepstakes like

653
00:36:07,440 --> 00:36:09,960
Speaker 1: never before? What do you think? I don't know because

654
00:36:10,000 --> 00:36:12,480
Speaker 1: I didn't know sweepers existed. I didn't know that there

655
00:36:12,480 --> 00:36:17,960
Speaker 1: were people that would spend um, you know, sometimes a

656
00:36:18,000 --> 00:36:22,080
Speaker 1: couple of hours a day, randomly or not randomly, very

657
00:36:22,280 --> 00:36:28,160
Speaker 1: pinpointedly looking for and registering for all kinds of sweepsteaks,

658
00:36:29,480 --> 00:36:34,239
Speaker 1: using spreadsheets, using their auto fill on their computers, just

659
00:36:34,360 --> 00:36:38,000
Speaker 1: to enter to win, over and over and over again. Yeah,

660
00:36:38,080 --> 00:36:41,160
Speaker 1: but they're out there, and it's a subculture that I

661
00:36:41,160 --> 00:36:43,680
Speaker 1: I'm surprised there's not There may be a documentary about them,

662
00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:46,280
Speaker 1: I don't know. I haven't run across any any mention

663
00:36:46,320 --> 00:36:49,640
Speaker 1: of one. There's a really good Zachary Crockett article Zachary Crockett,

664
00:36:49,719 --> 00:36:52,560
Speaker 1: amazing writer who I don't know if he still writes

665
00:36:52,600 --> 00:36:55,600
Speaker 1: for prison Onomics or not, but just amazing. He of

666
00:36:55,640 --> 00:36:58,279
Speaker 1: course did one on this subculture. But he said that

667
00:36:58,680 --> 00:37:02,319
Speaker 1: like a good, you know, normal sweeper, somebody who's like

668
00:37:02,440 --> 00:37:06,760
Speaker 1: a genuine hobbyist is doing this for hours and hours

669
00:37:06,760 --> 00:37:13,719
Speaker 1: a day and entering up to hundreds of sweepstakes every day. Hundreds, Yeah,

670
00:37:13,960 --> 00:37:17,759
Speaker 1: hundreds award like Christmas story, that's what they call them

671
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:20,239
Speaker 1: in in the I should say. So. There was a

672
00:37:20,239 --> 00:37:25,000
Speaker 1: Slate article from two thousand three, and it had a

673
00:37:25,040 --> 00:37:31,360
Speaker 1: lot of just blatantly factual errors, um or blatant factual

674
00:37:31,440 --> 00:37:34,920
Speaker 1: errors and was really arrogant and like dismissive towards this

675
00:37:34,920 --> 00:37:37,720
Speaker 1: this group. So it's possible they don't call them major awards,

676
00:37:37,719 --> 00:37:40,000
Speaker 1: but that's where I got that from. But the the

677
00:37:40,120 --> 00:37:43,200
Speaker 1: lingo was m A that they're after the m A

678
00:37:43,239 --> 00:37:48,600
Speaker 1: big cash payouts, cars, boats, major awards that are not

679
00:37:48,640 --> 00:37:52,360
Speaker 1: necessarily fred gila. Yeah, and it's um, it's still the

680
00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:57,600
Speaker 1: same sort of uh, like we said with with social media,

681
00:37:57,640 --> 00:37:59,440
Speaker 1: it's a little bit different how it goes, but it's

682
00:37:59,480 --> 00:38:01,439
Speaker 1: still the same kind of aim, which is to build

683
00:38:01,440 --> 00:38:05,080
Speaker 1: brand recognition. Um. You see major brands doing these sort

684
00:38:05,120 --> 00:38:08,760
Speaker 1: of fun games, like a Jeep hit those tiki torches.

685
00:38:09,640 --> 00:38:11,200
Speaker 1: This is sort of like a scavenger hunt. You had

686
00:38:11,239 --> 00:38:13,480
Speaker 1: to go around and find these torches. There were clues

687
00:38:13,520 --> 00:38:16,520
Speaker 1: on Facebook. You went a wrangler if you found all

688
00:38:16,560 --> 00:38:19,800
Speaker 1: the torches. And that's good for Facebook, it's good for Jeep,

689
00:38:19,880 --> 00:38:23,520
Speaker 1: it's probably good for tiki torches. But every you know,

690
00:38:23,680 --> 00:38:27,000
Speaker 1: every department store on the planet has some sort of

691
00:38:27,400 --> 00:38:30,279
Speaker 1: even very minor like here's a fifty dollar gift card

692
00:38:30,360 --> 00:38:32,840
Speaker 1: kind of thing if you retweet this or whatever, Like

693
00:38:32,880 --> 00:38:35,160
Speaker 1: those are just all over the place. Now all over

694
00:38:35,280 --> 00:38:40,360
Speaker 1: there's a site called, um sweep Steaks. What is it

695
00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:45,560
Speaker 1: called sweet uh sweep Steaks Hub? I think so. I mean,

696
00:38:45,600 --> 00:38:47,279
Speaker 1: if that's not what it's called, it might as well

697
00:38:47,320 --> 00:38:49,560
Speaker 1: be called that. I can't find it right now. Well,

698
00:38:49,600 --> 00:38:51,560
Speaker 1: we'll see if we can call it out later. But

699
00:38:51,920 --> 00:38:54,439
Speaker 1: I went to it today, and I mean, dude, there's

700
00:38:54,440 --> 00:38:57,520
Speaker 1: a sweepstakes for everything. There's a new podcast out and

701
00:38:57,640 --> 00:39:02,239
Speaker 1: they're giving away like Amazon all xa um just to

702
00:39:02,400 --> 00:39:06,000
Speaker 1: just to generate interest and awareness of their podcast. It's

703
00:39:06,040 --> 00:39:09,520
Speaker 1: like everything has some sort of sweep steaks. Like if

704
00:39:09,520 --> 00:39:11,880
Speaker 1: you got a new book, give away five books? We

705
00:39:11,920 --> 00:39:14,480
Speaker 1: should do this. You give away five books and then

706
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:16,839
Speaker 1: hopefully everybody's like, well, I didn't win, but that book

707
00:39:16,880 --> 00:39:19,479
Speaker 1: sounds pretty great. I'm going to go ahead and buy

708
00:39:19,480 --> 00:39:21,040
Speaker 1: that book. Or at the very least, now I'm on

709
00:39:21,040 --> 00:39:23,480
Speaker 1: a mailing list for this publisher because I've just shown

710
00:39:23,520 --> 00:39:25,759
Speaker 1: them that I like books enough to enter into the

711
00:39:25,800 --> 00:39:28,239
Speaker 1: sweep steaks. Is that podcast? Let me ask you this.

712
00:39:28,320 --> 00:39:31,239
Speaker 1: Can you listen to it on iTunes, I Heart media

713
00:39:31,239 --> 00:39:35,640
Speaker 1: app or wherever you find your podcasts? Probably interesting? They're

714
00:39:35,640 --> 00:39:38,400
Speaker 1: doing something right, Yeah, they are. I'm gonna find the

715
00:39:38,480 --> 00:39:41,400
Speaker 1: name of that podcast because we can't. We can't mentioned

716
00:39:41,400 --> 00:39:44,839
Speaker 1: a podcast like that and just just never give the name.

717
00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:47,719
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna do a little researching while you tap

718
00:39:47,800 --> 00:39:52,160
Speaker 1: dance for us. Okay, okay, one and a two. So

719
00:39:52,440 --> 00:39:56,720
Speaker 1: uh yeah, at least four million sweep steaks today. Um. Now,

720
00:39:56,880 --> 00:39:59,439
Speaker 1: the like you said, the FTC got involved. They held

721
00:39:59,480 --> 00:40:03,239
Speaker 1: hearings and everything is on the up and up. Now, Um,

722
00:40:03,280 --> 00:40:05,080
Speaker 1: you have to and and I'm sure this is all

723
00:40:05,200 --> 00:40:08,279
Speaker 1: very much spelled out as far as like you have

724
00:40:08,360 --> 00:40:12,160
Speaker 1: to clearly explain the rules and clearly explain your chances

725
00:40:12,160 --> 00:40:15,160
Speaker 1: of winning. Um. And I'm sure that's very much mandated

726
00:40:15,160 --> 00:40:17,800
Speaker 1: on what clearly means. They're not just like yeah, whatever

727
00:40:17,840 --> 00:40:20,120
Speaker 1: you think is clear as fine with us. Yeah, Congress

728
00:40:20,120 --> 00:40:25,279
Speaker 1: actually got involved in passed an act. Yeah and what night,

729
00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:30,399
Speaker 1: Well when was that? Okay? Yeah, I mean that's that's

730
00:40:30,440 --> 00:40:34,120
Speaker 1: what Congress does sometimes, right, But that's I mean the

731
00:40:34,200 --> 00:40:37,120
Speaker 1: reason why is because there were there are a few

732
00:40:37,160 --> 00:40:41,359
Speaker 1: cases that sort of troubled people, to say the least. Yeah,

733
00:40:41,480 --> 00:40:45,040
Speaker 1: the they passed the Deceptive Mail Prevention and Enforcement Act,

734
00:40:45,120 --> 00:40:47,600
Speaker 1: also known as the Sweepstakes Act, and there was one

735
00:40:47,800 --> 00:40:52,520
Speaker 1: case in particular that really pushed everything over the edge. Yeah,

736
00:40:52,520 --> 00:40:56,920
Speaker 1: this elderly man in his eighties, Um, he lived in California,

737
00:40:57,080 --> 00:41:00,440
Speaker 1: and uh, with his own money, he flew not once

738
00:41:00,800 --> 00:41:05,919
Speaker 1: but twice to Tampa to the American Family Publisher's headquarters

739
00:41:06,560 --> 00:41:09,279
Speaker 1: to claim his prize money because if he got he

740
00:41:09,320 --> 00:41:11,600
Speaker 1: gotten a mailer that said that he was already a winner.

741
00:41:11,600 --> 00:41:15,719
Speaker 1: Apparently the actual label said final results are in and

742
00:41:15,760 --> 00:41:19,960
Speaker 1: they're official. You're our newest eleven million dollar winner. And

743
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:21,839
Speaker 1: then if you read the fine print, it was like

744
00:41:21,920 --> 00:41:24,800
Speaker 1: if you have the winning number. This man flew twice

745
00:41:24,880 --> 00:41:28,600
Speaker 1: to calif to Tampa to collect on two different prizes

746
00:41:28,640 --> 00:41:32,040
Speaker 1: because of mailer's twice and they finally said enough enough.

747
00:41:32,360 --> 00:41:34,600
Speaker 1: I can just picture him on the plane and like

748
00:41:35,400 --> 00:41:38,120
Speaker 1: telling his seat mate like what's going on, and then

749
00:41:39,080 --> 00:41:42,280
Speaker 1: not knowing what to do quite frankly, well, yeah, imagine

750
00:41:42,280 --> 00:41:45,279
Speaker 1: being the seat mate's like sea checks take this letter out, yeah,

751
00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:47,520
Speaker 1: and you're just like, oh no, this is not gonna

752
00:41:47,520 --> 00:41:49,359
Speaker 1: go well for this, Like what do you do there?

753
00:41:49,400 --> 00:41:51,960
Speaker 1: Do you? I would, honestly, I wouldn't know what to

754
00:41:51,960 --> 00:41:55,680
Speaker 1: do because that that hits me right where it hurts,

755
00:41:55,719 --> 00:42:00,000
Speaker 1: which is uh to be kind and empathetic, but also

756
00:42:00,160 --> 00:42:02,800
Speaker 1: to not let someone go through something like terrible r

757
00:42:03,200 --> 00:42:05,160
Speaker 1: So I wouldn't. I would that that presents a real

758
00:42:05,239 --> 00:42:07,719
Speaker 1: ethical quandary for me. Well, I think I think at

759
00:42:07,760 --> 00:42:10,080
Speaker 1: that point you kind of say, Um, I'm gonna be late.

760
00:42:10,160 --> 00:42:13,400
Speaker 1: I have to go to American Family Publishers headquarters before

761
00:42:13,560 --> 00:42:17,400
Speaker 1: I come to the meeting because this guy, yeah, that

762
00:42:17,480 --> 00:42:20,400
Speaker 1: and coronavirus. Right. No, really, I just don't want to

763
00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:22,799
Speaker 1: take the chance of being next to someone going to

764
00:42:22,840 --> 00:42:26,239
Speaker 1: pick up their grand prize that doesn't exist. So so

765
00:42:26,360 --> 00:42:30,759
Speaker 1: they part of that UM, that Congressional Act is that,

766
00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:33,360
Speaker 1: like you really need to be a lot more clear

767
00:42:33,400 --> 00:42:36,120
Speaker 1: about the odds of winning. UM. You have to say

768
00:42:36,160 --> 00:42:40,360
Speaker 1: things like no purchase necessary or another phrases buying won't

769
00:42:40,360 --> 00:42:43,319
Speaker 1: help you win. UM. But the whole thing, from what

770
00:42:43,400 --> 00:42:45,800
Speaker 1: I understand, the whole thing. And by the way, American

771
00:42:45,840 --> 00:42:50,240
Speaker 1: Family Publishers is now defunct. They went under UM. Unfortunately,

772
00:42:50,680 --> 00:42:53,440
Speaker 1: fortunately for Publishers clearing House, they got all sorts of

773
00:42:53,480 --> 00:42:56,600
Speaker 1: free press because people used to just think American Family

774
00:42:56,600 --> 00:42:59,319
Speaker 1: Publishers was Publishers clearing House. But they also got all

775
00:42:59,320 --> 00:43:02,360
Speaker 1: the bad press too, because people would think that anything

776
00:43:02,400 --> 00:43:06,280
Speaker 1: American family Publishers did. It was actually Publishers clearing House.

777
00:43:06,719 --> 00:43:08,759
Speaker 1: So it was really weird. I think it is where

778
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:12,440
Speaker 1: like two alternate universes kind of came together right there. Now,

779
00:43:12,520 --> 00:43:14,960
Speaker 1: which one was it? That? Uh, there was one case

780
00:43:14,960 --> 00:43:19,840
Speaker 1: where they were uh they had the entree entry entry envelopes,

781
00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:25,239
Speaker 1: the entree envelopes packaged in such a way that, uh,

782
00:43:25,280 --> 00:43:27,480
Speaker 1: you could tell the envelopes where people actually did buy

783
00:43:27,480 --> 00:43:30,040
Speaker 1: a subscription and where they didn't, even though they were

784
00:43:30,040 --> 00:43:32,920
Speaker 1: both supposed to be entered, which very easily allowed them

785
00:43:32,960 --> 00:43:34,800
Speaker 1: to just throw away the ones where they didn't actually

786
00:43:35,120 --> 00:43:37,719
Speaker 1: buy something. Was that pH or the other that was

787
00:43:37,760 --> 00:43:40,840
Speaker 1: Publishers clearing House And they were found their blood on

788
00:43:40,880 --> 00:43:43,799
Speaker 1: their hands to them throwing away hundreds of entries that

789
00:43:43,880 --> 00:43:47,080
Speaker 1: had no no check because again, remember what they're trying

790
00:43:47,080 --> 00:43:48,719
Speaker 1: to do is get you to subscribe to a bunch

791
00:43:48,719 --> 00:43:51,600
Speaker 1: of magazines or now they sell vitamins or housewears or

792
00:43:51,640 --> 00:43:54,840
Speaker 1: something like that. Um, and if you hadn't sent a

793
00:43:54,960 --> 00:43:58,239
Speaker 1: check in, apparently some big chunk of entries got just

794
00:43:58,280 --> 00:44:00,919
Speaker 1: thrown away. Well, and they you know you talked about

795
00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:03,920
Speaker 1: sweepstakes law, there was they did have to settle a

796
00:44:03,960 --> 00:44:09,600
Speaker 1: lot of lawsuits over the years, uh, civil lawsuits from contestants, so, uh,

797
00:44:09,640 --> 00:44:11,440
Speaker 1: you know there were people that were wise to it,

798
00:44:11,440 --> 00:44:13,839
Speaker 1: and there were attorneys out there very willing to take

799
00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:16,600
Speaker 1: those cases. I'm sure. Yeah, And I think over time

800
00:44:16,640 --> 00:44:19,040
Speaker 1: part of it was because of that pre selected thing

801
00:44:19,640 --> 00:44:22,480
Speaker 1: where UM people were like, what do you mean nobody

802
00:44:22,520 --> 00:44:24,719
Speaker 1: won the grand prize? People really paying attention to that

803
00:44:24,800 --> 00:44:27,759
Speaker 1: kind of stuff, and they would get sued and I

804
00:44:27,800 --> 00:44:31,239
Speaker 1: saw that they they paid tens of millions of dollars

805
00:44:31,840 --> 00:44:34,920
Speaker 1: to UM to settle some of these and fight some

806
00:44:35,000 --> 00:44:37,839
Speaker 1: of them too. So but they're still in business, which

807
00:44:37,840 --> 00:44:41,200
Speaker 1: means that they're still making so much money that they

808
00:44:41,239 --> 00:44:44,640
Speaker 1: it's it's worth UM holding these sweepstakes not just to

809
00:44:44,640 --> 00:44:49,080
Speaker 1: give the prizes away, but also to UM to uh

810
00:44:49,360 --> 00:44:54,120
Speaker 1: to fight off litigation as well. Yeah. And one way

811
00:44:54,160 --> 00:44:57,480
Speaker 1: that you can really kind of fight off litigation UM

812
00:44:57,600 --> 00:45:01,719
Speaker 1: is by hiring what's called sweepstakes administra reader. Yeah, Like

813
00:45:02,239 --> 00:45:06,440
Speaker 1: there are companies that will fully UM execute the contest

814
00:45:07,239 --> 00:45:09,560
Speaker 1: from beginning to end. You hire that. It's like hiring

815
00:45:09,600 --> 00:45:12,799
Speaker 1: a caterer. You don't have to worry about the the

816
00:45:12,800 --> 00:45:15,359
Speaker 1: little stuff mushrooms like they're gonna do it all they're

817
00:45:15,360 --> 00:45:17,359
Speaker 1: gonna come in administer it in a way that's above

818
00:45:17,400 --> 00:45:20,000
Speaker 1: board and legal. You don't have to worry about the hassle.

819
00:45:20,080 --> 00:45:24,000
Speaker 1: You just gotta pay them their big and uh and

820
00:45:24,040 --> 00:45:26,400
Speaker 1: you're all set right. It's hard to believe that there

821
00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:28,040
Speaker 1: are companies out there that do this, but there are

822
00:45:28,440 --> 00:45:31,400
Speaker 1: so as as much as like they're like pc seems

823
00:45:31,440 --> 00:45:35,799
Speaker 1: a little hustling. It is a legitimate sweepstakes company. It's

824
00:45:35,800 --> 00:45:38,759
Speaker 1: not a scam. But there are plenty of scams out there,

825
00:45:39,160 --> 00:45:41,800
Speaker 1: and in fact, pc H has to warn the public

826
00:45:42,280 --> 00:45:44,640
Speaker 1: how to look out for scams. One of the biggest

827
00:45:44,680 --> 00:45:49,880
Speaker 1: ways is that if you are contacted via email, phone, Facebook,

828
00:45:49,960 --> 00:45:53,640
Speaker 1: something like that, um saying that you won a big prize,

829
00:45:54,120 --> 00:45:57,439
Speaker 1: they're going that like that's automatically wrong because they send

830
00:45:57,440 --> 00:46:00,439
Speaker 1: their prize patrol out for their biggest prizes and that's

831
00:46:00,480 --> 00:46:03,040
Speaker 1: really legitimately. How you would find out is they show

832
00:46:03,120 --> 00:46:05,600
Speaker 1: up at your house. Yeah, and you know these are

833
00:46:05,600 --> 00:46:09,759
Speaker 1: all uh, they seem like no brainers to people like us,

834
00:46:09,800 --> 00:46:11,759
Speaker 1: but to a lot of people they fall for this

835
00:46:11,800 --> 00:46:14,920
Speaker 1: stuff and it's really sad. Um. You know, if you

836
00:46:15,000 --> 00:46:17,759
Speaker 1: if you get anything that says you've won something, all

837
00:46:17,800 --> 00:46:21,240
Speaker 1: you gotta do is prepay this tax any anything, asking

838
00:46:21,280 --> 00:46:25,120
Speaker 1: for credit card information, any kind of payment whatsoever. Is

839
00:46:25,239 --> 00:46:30,560
Speaker 1: one a scam every time, UM any time. A lot

840
00:46:30,560 --> 00:46:34,880
Speaker 1: of times it's front. It's a front for like UM mallware. UM.

841
00:46:35,040 --> 00:46:37,880
Speaker 1: They might ask you, like I said, for your social

842
00:46:37,920 --> 00:46:42,400
Speaker 1: Security number, your credit cards. Just don't don't fall for

843
00:46:42,440 --> 00:46:45,719
Speaker 1: that stuff. Don't give anyone information like that. No, and

844
00:46:45,840 --> 00:46:48,120
Speaker 1: you will need to give them your social Security number

845
00:46:48,120 --> 00:46:50,640
Speaker 1: eventually if you win any prize over six dollars for

846
00:46:50,680 --> 00:46:53,680
Speaker 1: tax reporting, because remember taxes are a thing. But they're

847
00:46:53,719 --> 00:46:56,319
Speaker 1: not going to get you up over Facebook messenger and

848
00:46:56,360 --> 00:46:58,160
Speaker 1: tell you you want a prize, So give me your

849
00:46:58,200 --> 00:47:01,160
Speaker 1: social Security number right now. The thing is is a

850
00:47:01,239 --> 00:47:03,319
Speaker 1: lot of people who play this are elderly, and they

851
00:47:03,320 --> 00:47:05,360
Speaker 1: are preyed upon, and there are a lot of scams

852
00:47:05,440 --> 00:47:08,280
Speaker 1: out there. UM. I saw some figure in the tens

853
00:47:08,320 --> 00:47:12,239
Speaker 1: of billions of dollars that is lost to scam sweepstakes

854
00:47:12,239 --> 00:47:15,279
Speaker 1: every year in the United States. That's insane. It's an

855
00:47:15,280 --> 00:47:17,680
Speaker 1: insane amount of money that's being lost. And let's just

856
00:47:17,719 --> 00:47:22,600
Speaker 1: say it is super sad. So the name of the

857
00:47:22,719 --> 00:47:27,279
Speaker 1: UM podcast is called UH The Authority with Brian s

858
00:47:27,400 --> 00:47:32,520
Speaker 1: Arnold um. And what's sad is they're in week eight

859
00:47:32,640 --> 00:47:36,719
Speaker 1: of their eight week giveaway sweepstakes giveaway, and so this

860
00:47:36,760 --> 00:47:39,080
Speaker 1: will come out long after the eight weeks is up,

861
00:47:39,120 --> 00:47:42,080
Speaker 1: so sorry about that. But there was a sweepstakes that

862
00:47:42,400 --> 00:47:45,680
Speaker 1: the The Authority Project with brianess Arnold held to win

863
00:47:45,760 --> 00:47:49,279
Speaker 1: a speaker. And you know what's interesting, this is not

864
00:47:49,440 --> 00:47:52,200
Speaker 1: off off topic, but over the years a couple of

865
00:47:52,239 --> 00:47:54,799
Speaker 1: times we've had a couple of dumb ideas like, hey,

866
00:47:54,800 --> 00:47:56,680
Speaker 1: why don't we give away a thing to listeners for,

867
00:47:56,800 --> 00:48:00,600
Speaker 1: you know, just doing something, And every single time, like

868
00:48:00,719 --> 00:48:04,839
Speaker 1: the legal department of whatever parent company we had, was like, no, no, no, no, no,

869
00:48:04,880 --> 00:48:06,480
Speaker 1: we're not going to get involved in this kind of

870
00:48:06,520 --> 00:48:08,920
Speaker 1: thing because then it's a contest where like, well it's

871
00:48:08,960 --> 00:48:11,040
Speaker 1: not really contest, it's just very low fly and they're like,

872
00:48:11,239 --> 00:48:13,400
Speaker 1: you can't do that. You have no idea the kind

873
00:48:13,440 --> 00:48:15,279
Speaker 1: of worms you're opening up. Yeah, because there's a whole

874
00:48:15,280 --> 00:48:18,400
Speaker 1: branch of law called sweepstakes law, and it it involves

875
00:48:18,920 --> 00:48:21,120
Speaker 1: following the letter of the law and also helping people

876
00:48:21,160 --> 00:48:23,759
Speaker 1: sue people who are suspected of not following the letter

877
00:48:23,800 --> 00:48:26,200
Speaker 1: of the law. Yeah, so as attorneys, they just kind

878
00:48:26,200 --> 00:48:29,920
Speaker 1: of always squashed it. Um, So I just want to

879
00:48:29,920 --> 00:48:31,879
Speaker 1: give a big shout out. We never said I don't

880
00:48:31,920 --> 00:48:34,840
Speaker 1: think why people do this real quick chuck um. And

881
00:48:34,920 --> 00:48:39,800
Speaker 1: there's a woman named Sandra Grauschoff and she is probably

882
00:48:39,880 --> 00:48:42,600
Speaker 1: the world's leading expert on sweepstakes at the very least

883
00:48:42,600 --> 00:48:46,120
Speaker 1: America's leading experts on on sweep steaks. She runs, um

884
00:48:46,160 --> 00:48:51,200
Speaker 1: the balance is sweepstakes pages and just legitimately knows what

885
00:48:51,280 --> 00:48:53,759
Speaker 1: she's talking about. And she just said it's excitement. It's

886
00:48:53,760 --> 00:48:56,120
Speaker 1: as simple as that. That like the idea of getting

887
00:48:56,120 --> 00:48:59,680
Speaker 1: a checker, Um, getting a prize affidavit in the mail

888
00:49:00,280 --> 00:49:03,279
Speaker 1: is very exciting. Um. Other people have called it a

889
00:49:03,360 --> 00:49:08,200
Speaker 1: high and Grauschof says, um, Yeah. It turns out, though,

890
00:49:08,239 --> 00:49:11,319
Speaker 1: if you're if you're thinking about sweep stakes every day

891
00:49:11,320 --> 00:49:13,240
Speaker 1: and how to play them better and all that stuff,

892
00:49:13,280 --> 00:49:15,880
Speaker 1: you may want to get evaluated for a gambling addiction

893
00:49:15,880 --> 00:49:19,640
Speaker 1: because it can kind of easily traps into that. I'm sure. Yeah,

894
00:49:19,960 --> 00:49:25,200
Speaker 1: who knew gambling addiction would make an appearance. So if

895
00:49:25,239 --> 00:49:27,319
Speaker 1: you want to know more about sweep stakes, well go

896
00:49:27,440 --> 00:49:30,239
Speaker 1: forward and check them out. Uh. And since I said that,

897
00:49:30,320 --> 00:49:36,000
Speaker 1: it's time for a listener mail I'm gonna call this

898
00:49:36,719 --> 00:49:39,680
Speaker 1: how he helps somebody out recently. Hey, guys, want to

899
00:49:39,719 --> 00:49:42,800
Speaker 1: say thanks before even telling you why. I honestly cannot

900
00:49:42,800 --> 00:49:45,200
Speaker 1: thank you enough. My name is James twenty one and

901
00:49:45,239 --> 00:49:48,960
Speaker 1: I'm from Glasgow, Scotland. Yesterday, while at work, I received

902
00:49:48,960 --> 00:49:50,840
Speaker 1: a call from my dad telling me that my grandma

903
00:49:51,160 --> 00:49:54,520
Speaker 1: had passed away suddenly during the night. Obviously distraught, I

904
00:49:54,600 --> 00:49:57,440
Speaker 1: left work headed home to be with my family. I

905
00:49:57,480 --> 00:50:00,640
Speaker 1: know that nobody enjoys crying, but I re really hated

906
00:50:00,960 --> 00:50:02,920
Speaker 1: and as I end up with these uh as, I

907
00:50:02,960 --> 00:50:05,600
Speaker 1: end up with these very intense headaches. Well through the tears.

908
00:50:05,640 --> 00:50:07,640
Speaker 1: On my drive home, with your podcast playing through my car,

909
00:50:07,920 --> 00:50:10,960
Speaker 1: I was able to laugh and to smile despite the circumstances.

910
00:50:11,280 --> 00:50:12,640
Speaker 1: I couldn't, for the life of me tell you which

911
00:50:12,680 --> 00:50:14,880
Speaker 1: episode I even listened to, just that it made me

912
00:50:14,960 --> 00:50:17,600
Speaker 1: laugh and save me from the literal headache and the

913
00:50:17,640 --> 00:50:19,960
Speaker 1: heartache that I was feeling. And for that I'm so thankful.

914
00:50:20,560 --> 00:50:22,520
Speaker 1: I must have listened to around two or three hundred

915
00:50:22,560 --> 00:50:25,880
Speaker 1: of your podcasts in the past month or so, so

916
00:50:25,920 --> 00:50:27,799
Speaker 1: please keep doing what you're doing. And that is from

917
00:50:27,880 --> 00:50:32,560
Speaker 1: James M. In Scotland. Sorry to hear about your grandma, James,

918
00:50:32,560 --> 00:50:35,040
Speaker 1: and I glad we could help. Our condolence is James.

919
00:50:35,080 --> 00:50:37,840
Speaker 1: But yeah, it is very nice to hear um. You

920
00:50:37,880 --> 00:50:40,440
Speaker 1: know that we we can help people in times like

921
00:50:40,480 --> 00:50:42,960
Speaker 1: that in some small way. You know for sure makes

922
00:50:43,040 --> 00:50:47,440
Speaker 1: us feel like real big shots. If you want to

923
00:50:47,440 --> 00:50:49,960
Speaker 1: get in touch with this, you can send us an

924
00:50:49,960 --> 00:50:56,920
Speaker 1: email to Stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff

925
00:50:56,960 --> 00:50:58,920
Speaker 1: you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radios How

926
00:50:58,920 --> 00:51:01,680
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit

927
00:51:01,680 --> 00:51:04,000
Speaker 1: the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or where ever

928
00:51:04,040 --> 00:51:12,200
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. M h m hm