Double the Wins, Double the Fun

Take a chance on chance auctions. You never know!

I’m not a gambler. Not in the “lose my house and savings” kind of way anyway. But I have been known to dabble.

Like the time many years ago in Atlantic City when I put $20 in a slot machine, won $100, and immediately walked away. My wife and I then proceeded to have a nice dinner at a nearby restaurant.

There was also the time during a cruise to Bermuda that I decided to once again try my luck at the slot machines because of a conversation with an actual gambler who had his entire cruise comped. It wasn’t until I had lost $60 that I found out I’d need to lose another $1,940 before I’d get my first “free” trip.

So I stopped.

Until I Didn’t

There is, however, one time of the year when the gambling bug bites.

Some call it a chance auction. Others call it a penny social or tricky tray.

I was introduced to it 3 years ago when my son started going to a high school which holds an annual lucky number fundraising dinner.

My wife and I really didn’t know what to expect. Along with the cost of our dinner, we were given a sheet of tickets. If you’ve never been to one before, here’s how they usually work.

1. You pay for as many tickets as you like.

2. There are baskets of various prizes with a container in front of each.

3. If you’d like a chance at winning a prize, you can place as many tickets as you like in that container.

4. Once everyone’s had a chance to “spend” all of their tickets, the host will pull one ticket for each prize. If your ticket matches, you win the prize!

The one that we attended most recently had two tiers of prizes where the cost for tickets to the second tier was higher. That’s because the Tier 2 baskets had a higher value.

But wait, there’s more!

In addition to the auction, we had yet another opportunity to gamble, whoops, I mean donate money to my kid’s school. We could also buy tickets to the 50/50 raffle where we would have the chance to win half of the cash collected from the sale of those tickets. We unfortunately did not walk away with that prize.

Winner, winner. Chicken dinner!

Based on what I’ve experienced these last three years of attending the chance auction, there really are only 2 strategies when it comes to bidding on prizes.

Strategy 1 — Laser Beam: This is where you focus in on one or two prizes that you really, really want to bring home. It could be a day at the spa. Maybe it’s a pizza oven. And you dump all of your tickets. Because the more tickets you put in, the more chances you have to win.

Strategy 2 — Shotgun Blast: You can’t help it. You like everything you see, so you put a ticket in every container.

Our strategy leans more toward Laser Beam than Shotgun Blast.

While it may be more exciting to have a stake in every prize and be on the edge of your seat during the host’s every announcement, I’ve found that we win more when we take a more focused approach.

And win we did.

In Year 1, we felt we were walking out of that auction with nothing but dust in our pockets and chimichurri steak in our bellies. However this would not be the story we would be telling our future grandchildren. With a stroke of luck, we won a rare Tier 3 prize, a chartered fishing trip.

In Year 2, there was no big prize. But we did win a Tier 1 prize which contained some school-branded paraphernalia. It wasn’t the best, but it also wasn’t the worst.

This recent auction was probably our favorite thus far. It was the first time that we each won something we liked. My wife won a basket called Feeling Fancy which contained a themed set of napkins, napkin rings, and a platter along with a mug warming set and a gift certificate for a wash, cut, and blowout. I won a Tier 2 prize which might as well have been called Caffeine Overload. It came with a Nespresso Vertuo Next, several gift certificates to various coffee shops, coffee flavorings, and other goodies.

We were definitely happy campers by the end of the night.

While we had a ton of fun at the auction (because hey, it’s fun to win), I’d be wary of attending more than one a year. It can be a bit pricey depending on how many tickets you purchase and you’re obviously not guaranteed to win anything.

If you’ve never been to a chance auction, I’d say try it at least once. Go in with the mindset of having fun and no expectations of winning. That way if your ticket doesn’t get called, you would’ve still had a good time.

Anyway, I’m off to go make a quick cup of coffee with my newly unboxed Nespresso machine.