A player in London won the top prize in the Win a House in Sandbanks competition today. Due to disappointing ticket sales, they will be handed a cheque for £41,000 instead of the original prize, a £1 million house on "Millionaire's Row". The draw was carried out today, however the identity of the winner has not yet been published.

After months of discussions with the Gambling Commission, the Sandbanks Life competition organised by Vivid Construction Ltd was allowed to proceed. The competition offered players a chance of winning a million pound family home on the Sandbanks peninsula. To qualify for the prize draw, they had to buy a £25 ticket and answer questions on the website correctly.

Despite extending the competition by a couple of months to 31 July 2009, the target set to give away the property wasn't reached, with some 2,053 tickets sold instead of 52,000. According to an interview published in the Bournemouth Echo today, a total of 1,561 correct entries were entered into the draw. As per the terms and conditions, the winner was awarded a cash prize corresponding to the total value of tickets sold minus 20% to cover competition expenses. According to the interview, a total of 14 refunds were also made to players.

On 12 August, the promoters provided an explanation for the low ticket sales: "Regrettably, the mark of 52,000 entries was not achieved. The number has fallen well short of the required amount. Despite the extensive national and even international publicity we managed to generate, we believe that reports of other competitions being cancelled affected the final number sold.

Whilst some competition organisers seem to have indicated that they were concerned about falling foul of gaming legislation, as per the information that has been published on our website, we set ours up under the guidelines provided by the Gaming Commission. Nevertheless, we have reason to believe that the adverse publicity relating to other competitions was the primary cause of not reaching our target figure."

According to the latest statement on the Sandbanks Life website, the draw was carried out today at 10:30am in the presence of lawyers. The comment goes on to state that: "For obvious privacy reasons we cannot divulge the winners name, we can however say that the winner comes from London."

The statement doesn't mention whether the winner's identity has been confirmed, which could explain the lack of details. The terms and conditions of the competition state that the winner's name, age and town of residence are to be published within 24 hours of the result.

We'll keep you posted as soon as we find out more details about who won the £40,000 prize.

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Comments & Opinions

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A bit vague...

I bet there are quite a few players living in London! Unless they've been notified personally they could still be in for a chance

Beth , 19 Dec 2009

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No more details?

Still no more details about the winner, has been well over 24 hours... I don't live in London but would have been curious to find out

Garyd , 21 Dec 2009

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Interesting

wow just stumbled upon this site and its sounds like a really good idea, where would you get tickets for the raffles?

Matt , 01 Feb 2010

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RE: Interesting

@ Matt

Thanks for your enquiry. The easiest way to take a look at all the house raffles and competitions is to visit our competitions directory (http://win-house.co.uk/property-competitions.html). You'll find raffles listed according to the country in which each property prize is located, together with details of how to buy a ticket. Good luck!

Team Win House , 01 Feb 2010

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Too little detail

I live in London and I entered but if I won no-one told me! Too little information has been given and that makes me suspicious!

Angie , 05 Feb 2010

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Re: Too little detail

@ Angie

Thanks for your comment. I agree it would be better if more competition organisers planned their communication strategy more thoroughly in advance to promote more transparency, particularly when it comes to announcing the winners' details.

While there may be cases where the winner has explicitly requested for their identity to remain private, this can be managed by providing summary information (beyond their city of residence).

For example, Australian charity RSL Art Union (http://win-house.co.uk/property-competitions/rsl-art-union.html) have been running successful house raffles for many years. They don't provide the winners' identities but always disclose their ticket numbers in addition to where they live and how each ticket was bought. This can then be checked as part of a formal audit for each raffle.

Team Win House , 05 Feb 2010

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payment providers

Hi, I've seen that one of the biggest problems is finding a payment provider that doesn't need big deposits etc - an alternative to Paypal.. (Unless Paypal is now taking competition payments). Who do people use most commonly and are they trusted?

Newbie , 24 Feb 2010

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Re: payment providers

@ Newbie

I've heard that a company called voicepay have worked on a few house competitions in the UK recently - don't know if they accept payments for all countries tho, good luck

whyohwhy , 24 Feb 2010

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Re: payment providers

@ Newbie & Whyohwhy

Thanks for starting this discussion.

A good place to leave more comments is the Payment Processing discussion group which was started a while back...

http://win-house.co.uk/community/groups/viewgroup/6-Payment+Processing.html

Team Win House , 24 Feb 2010

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