# Trek lucky 7 sweepstakes



## thegood (Feb 27, 2004)

Has anyone really won anything by playing online? I read somewhere that 1 in 22 wins. I've tried almost everyday with no luck.


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## mellowman (Apr 17, 2004)

thegood said:


> Has anyone really won anything by playing online? I read somewhere that 1 in 22 wins. I've tried almost everyday with no luck.


I just won a Disco water bottle. WoooHOOO! I feel just like Paul Sherwin!


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## Ray_from_SA (Jun 15, 2005)

I work at the LBS, in 2 weeks of the competition, we've only had 4 winners and all they won is those stupid energy bars.....


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## RodeRash (May 18, 2005)

LBS gave me six cards one day. Nothing.


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## Akirasho (Jan 27, 2004)

... Peak bar... expected.


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## mrrun2fast (Apr 14, 2003)

thegood said:


> Has anyone really won anything by playing online? I read somewhere that 1 in 22 wins. I've tried almost everyday with no luck.


Discovery key chain!

Won through the online version.


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## jch2112 (Feb 5, 2004)

thegood said:


> Has anyone really won anything by playing online? I read somewhere that 1 in 22 wins. I've tried almost everyday with no luck.


My wife won a keychain. I haven't had any luck yet and I've been playing since day 1.


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## EpicX (Mar 11, 2002)

won a peak bar the first and only time i played. keep forgetting to go back


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## spu2261 (Aug 26, 2004)

zero, zip, zilch, nada, niente!


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## cydswipe (Mar 7, 2002)

*Curious.*

There was a post on General Disc about this a couple of days ago. Seems that on that particular day, a lot of people won Peak bars online. I of course got shut out because of my pop-up blocker. I wonder if the give away rate goes up towards the end.


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## KenS (Jan 28, 2004)

*Trek should ask for money back from Ameri-Sweeps*



thegood said:


> Has anyone really won anything by playing online? I read somewhere that 1 in 22 wins. I've tried almost everyday with no luck.


The software is buggy and the server is usually bogged down. My daughter won a Peak bar but the program crashed when it tried to do it's "You've won" message. 

I have won a key chain online and a bottle at my LBS.


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## Bocephus Jones II (Oct 7, 2004)

mrrun2fast said:


> Discovery key chain!
> 
> Won in through the online version.


same for me


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## A4B45200 (Aug 28, 2004)

*So really...*

besides a key chain, peak bar, and water bottles, nobody here has won any of the 'good' prizes? The odds say 1 in 22. There has been 15 days so far...I've been using my account and my wife's...so that's 30 chances so far. What have I won? NOTHING!! I'm in the Bob Roll category in that. I even tried a couple of times at a Trek Store...no luck there either. Just like last year when OLN had that spin wheel deal...never won either. 

Also, the Lucky 7 site crashes sometimes when you try to play...then if you try again, it says you already played. Sucks.


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## mtbykr (Feb 16, 2004)

*Well*

my buddy won a key chain online and the pop up blocker stopped it but then he got an email with the confirmation!

as for me:


even my maganga couldn't help me!


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## zeytin (May 15, 2004)

A4B45200 said:


> Also, the Lucky 7 site crashes sometimes when you try to play...then if you try again, it says you already played. Sucks.


That has happened to me a bunch of times, really annoying!


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## Bocephus Jones II (Oct 7, 2004)

mtbykr said:


> my buddy won a key chain online and the pop up blocker stopped it but then he got an email with the confirmation!
> 
> as for me:
> 
> ...


maybe I didn't win a keychain then. I have pop-up blocker as well and got no confirmation. Sloppy programming.


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## A4B45200 (Aug 28, 2004)

*I think...*



mtbykr said:


> my buddy won a key chain online and the pop up blocker stopped it but then he got an email with the confirmation!
> 
> as for me:
> 
> ...



the small prizes are basically the real giveaways. There are tons of sweepstakes during the Tour from Bissel, Cervelo, Powerbar, Trek, etc. I want to hear about who actually wins a Madone SL (or Livestrong limited), Livestrong PC, Ride with Lance, a Cervelo P2 carbon. Heck, I would take a new vacuum!!


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## thegood (Feb 27, 2004)

*duh, now why didn't i think of that?!?!*



A4B45200 said:


> besides a key chain, peak bar, and water bottles, nobody here has won any of the 'good' prizes? The odds say 1 in 22. There has been 15 days so far...I've been using my account and my wife's...so that's 30 chances so far. What have I won? NOTHING!! I'm in the Bob Roll category in that. I even tried a couple of times at a Trek Store...no luck there either. Just like last year when OLN had that spin wheel deal...never won either.
> 
> Also, the Lucky 7 site crashes sometimes when you try to play...then if you try again, it says you already played. Sucks.


the wife's email, my work email, wife's work...but i'm not that lucky...i'm sure it would be just a big waste of time

but i love wastin' time!!!!!!!!!!!! thanks for the idea


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## [email protected] (Mar 22, 2005)

thegood said:


> Has anyone really won anything by playing online? I read somewhere that 1 in 22 wins. I've tried almost everyday with no luck.


I've worse luck than that of Bob Roll.


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## wzq622 (Aug 3, 2004)

mrrun2fast said:


> Discovery key chain!
> 
> Won through the online version.



since i work at a shop, i felt obliged to take a keychain since ill prolly never win anything in my life...


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## Chase15.5 (Feb 17, 2005)

I won a discovery T-shirt, but it locked up. So I refreshed the screen... and of course it didn't acknowledge that I won...


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## Granularus (Jul 12, 2005)

I haven't won, but my wife won on her first and third attempts at the online version - key chain plus drink bottle - of course I found that I "needed" a new pair of gloves and some extra pairs of socks while I was at the LBS. I'm sure it is working out well for the bike stores. From what I've seen more people are winning online than through the cards at the stores. Most of the redemptions at the store I went to - not my usual as I ride Specialized - were from online winners.


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## RkFast (Dec 11, 2004)

> I'm sure it is working out well for the bike stores.


And thats the point of the whole thing, right? Good for Trek for having a successful promotion, but like someone else mentioned, the agency they hired to run it didnt exactly do a great job. Im in the promotion business and Ive found no less than four or five pretty big "holes" in this thing. Nothing that makes the deal unfair for the players, however.


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## indianabob (Dec 22, 2001)

*Sherwin's shriek*

Anybody check out the cackle by Paul Sherwin this morning on the daily Lucky 7 spot. Sheesh. Nothing like a Howard Dean, but I'd love to have a soundbite of it.

FYI-Won one of those crappy Peak bars on my only scratch-off.

Cheers!


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## doug in co (Feb 4, 2004)

KenS said:


> The software is buggy and the server is usually bogged down.


yes, the implementation of the site is very poor. Flash is nearly unusable over dial-up, even before you get into the bugs. The login screen is static, so why on earth use Flash for the login ? bizarre. 

I won a keychain, but I'm waiting until I win the bike before I go in to the dealer to collect..


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## CarbonJoe (Jul 18, 2002)

*3 so far*

So far, I've "won" 2 Peak Bars and 1 Discovery Water Bottle. All online. 5 scratch off cards, nada.

CJ


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## Iwannapodiumgirl (Jun 26, 2002)

*A water bottle - i think...*



thegood said:


> Has anyone really won anything by playing online? I read somewhere that 1 in 22 wins. I've tried almost everyday with no luck.


I just scrathed up a water bottle, yet the screen is frozen - gotta love Macromedia Flash! Good thing I didn't win the Jetta, otherwise I'd be really mad...


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## insanebikerboy (Apr 22, 2005)

*turned off the pop-up blocker*

after listening to you guys about the screen freezing i turned off the pop up blocker and lo and behold on the next try my wife wins a keychain! yaay for a keychain....!


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## [email protected] (Mar 22, 2005)

*Bob Roll-0 Me-Free Waterbottle*



thegood said:


> Has anyone really won anything by playing online? I read somewhere that 1 in 22 wins. I've tried almost everyday with no luck.


I won!


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## Alpedhuez55 (Jun 29, 2005)

I finally won a Water Bottle.

It was the Maganga that did it for me


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## A4B45200 (Aug 28, 2004)

*No Lucky 40+ for me...*



Alpedhuez55 said:


> I finally won a Water Bottle.
> 
> It was the Maganga that did it for me



So far after about 40+ tries on the net and about 5-6 via bike stores, I have won ZERO. That's my luck, with odds that are set at 1-22, I am batting about 0 of 50. That's gotta be the RBR record of not winning!! 

Anybody win LESS than me?


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## Jeff G (Jul 22, 2005)

*At least its fun to try*

I won a water bottle on line and when I took the printout to my LBS to get it, I tried a scratch off and won another water bottle. Now I have more water bottles at home then i know what to do with.


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## A4B45200 (Aug 28, 2004)

*Cool...*



Jeff G said:


> I won a water bottle on line and when I took the printout to my LBS to get it, I tried a scratch off and won another water bottle. Now I have more water bottles at home then i know what to do with.


Can you forward me the email?  

For all you winners, do you just get an email and print it out? What prevents you from going back to multiple stores to claim? If there is no prevention, please forward me all your winning emails!!!  

Man, I just want a water bottle!!


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## Jeff G (Jul 22, 2005)

A4B45200 said:


> Can you forward me the email?
> 
> For all you winners, do you just get an email and print it out? What prevents you from going back to multiple stores to claim? If there is no prevention, please forward me all your winning emails!!!
> 
> Man, I just want a water bottle!!


When you win online the site has you print out a letter stating what you just won. You take that to your local Trek dealer and give it to them and they give you the prize, I guess it depends on what it is you just won. The bike may take a little bit longer as you would want a fitting for it, but for water bottles, peak bars, key chains and maybe even jerseys they just hand it over to you.


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## pwagle (Jul 4, 2005)

OMG...just won a Trek Madone!!!! 

It's picture comes with paper frame.


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## COmtbiker12 (Jul 9, 2005)

You might as well name me Bob Roll.  I've played online about 5 times a day since Stage 1 and Zilch! Nada! Nothing! lol.  Oh well..


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## El Caballito (Oct 31, 2004)

*zero...*



thegood said:


> Has anyone really won anything by playing online? I read somewhere that 1 in 22 wins. I've tried almost everyday with no luck.


The computer must think I'm Bob Roll or something. I have won absolutely nothing. Though today I scracthed two quick vw's, then faded out with a disco tee. I still have two days!


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## 690MBCOMMANDO (Jul 28, 2004)

So far for my wife playing online everyday it's been 2 key chains, 2 peak bars and a water bottle. Scratchers yielded nothing but silver shavings everywhere and no Bissell vacuum cleaner to clean it up.

I think the Livestrong bikes and Ride with Lance are in an airtight safe 3 miles underground at Trek - anyone have a key?


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## BenWA (Aug 11, 2004)

*just what does a guy hafta do to win?*



spu2261 said:


> zero, zip, zilch, nada, niente!


ahahaahaaha

Same here. I had 6 different e-mail addresses going, and I played the last 9 days (thats 54 plays total!). One of the times, the first two boxes that I scratched were "ride with Lance" and I about had a heart attack as I went to scratch off the third...but of course the third turned out to be a peak bar... 

TBH, I wouldn't really want to win a ride with Lance anyway, I would feel completely not worthy and I'm sure there are many more people out there who would have been able to appreciate it more fully. I probably would've sold it on ebay and given the proceeds to the LAF.

I dont know where the 1 in 22 wins come from. Were there a finite number of online scratch cards? If not, then the odds change as more prizes get claimed.


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## KenS (Jan 28, 2004)

*Keeping the odds constant*



BenWA said:


> ahahaahaaha
> 
> I dont know where the 1 in 22 wins come from. Were there a finite number of online scratch cards? If not, then the odds change as more prizes get claimed.


I don't know how the programmers did it but conceptually it is pretty easy to keep the odds at 1 in 22. When you logged in then the program did a call to a random number generator (RNG). The RNG is programmed to return a value within a specified range (say 1 to 22). One of those values is the magic number (like 7) and sends you down the winner's chute. The rest of the values send you ROLLing the other way. It doesn't matter how many people play, the odds remain constant.


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## ajoc_prez (Jul 14, 2004)

I saw the grand prize drawing on OLN. That old brit commentator won the Lance Trek bike and the younger brit commentator won a ride with Lance. Personally I don't think those guys should be eligible for prizes.


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## Guest (Jul 25, 2005)

*You know how this is going to end..................*

A couch tater will take his toddler into a Trek retailer to see if they have anything in the Wal-mart price range and end up winning either the Modone or the ride with Lance.  

The downside, he'll toss the ticket in the trash  

The upside, keep an eye on e-Bay  

One of our local Trek retailers did a terrific job with the promotion. They brought in a giant Mitsubishi big screen TV and a couple couches and chairs and ran the tour constantly. When this years Tour wasn't being broadcast on OLN, they ran DVD's of 1999 and 2003. Cheap soda's, free water & popcorn. Raffled off some nice stuff that was new but a couple seasons old. Tied it all together with the Lucky 7 promo.


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## A4B45200 (Aug 28, 2004)

*Still wonder...*



KenS said:


> I don't know how the programmers did it but conceptually it is pretty easy to keep the odds at 1 in 22. When you logged in then the program did a call to a random number generator (RNG). The RNG is programmed to return a value within a specified range (say 1 to 22). One of those values is the magic number (like 7) and sends you down the winner's chute. The rest of the values send you ROLLing the other way. It doesn't matter how many people play, the odds remain constant.



Didn't think of it that way. You may be right.

I believe the other poster (myself included) thought that if you have say 10 prizes and you have 20 players, then your odds of winning is 1 in 2. Now what if the number of players doubles to 40? What now are your odds of winning those 10 prizes? 1 in 4? If the number of players increases to 100, you now only have 1 in 10 odds and so forth.

So if there is no finite number of players (or in this case, online 'tries'), then is the odds still set at 1 in 22? I suppose in your scenario, no matter how many players, you will be assigned a random value between 1 and 21. With many players here over the 50+ tries, it still does not seem correct. If you take the number of times I played (probably around 50) plus the other poster who played about 50 times, that's 100+ tries with ZERO wins. 

Exciting!!!


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## BenWA (Aug 11, 2004)

*I see what you are saying, but...hmmmmm*



KenS said:


> I don't know how the programmers did it but conceptually it is pretty easy to keep the odds at 1 in 22. When you logged in then the program did a call to a random number generator (RNG). The RNG is programmed to return a value within a specified range (say 1 to 22). One of those values is the magic number (like 7) and sends you down the winner's chute. The rest of the values send you ROLLing the other way. It doesn't matter how many people play, the odds remain constant.


I see what you are getting at, but I'm just trying to figure out how they divvied up the prizes over the entire course of the game based on the 1 in 22 claim without risk of running out of prizes...

Let's see, they had 118,181 prizes to give away over 23 days, so my guess is that they divided the initial number of prizes by the duration of the game and essentially treated each day as an individual game (since you were only allowed to play once per day). So that's 5371 prizes to give away per day (mostly peak bars  ). But as it turns out, only 67903 of the prizes were actually won, so given your RNG idea (which I think is correct), they probably had way fewer wins generated per day than they had prizes...so my original point doesn't matter anyway. I guess in my above post I wasn't thinkin in terms of the number of wins being the limiting factor (rather than the number of prizes)...instead I was thinking how could they designers take the chance of giving away more wins than prizes. But it all makes sense now. Still, I'm pissed that my 54 plays didn't return squat with a .045 probability of gettin sump'm............

Another thing of note, given that only 67,903 of the 118,181 prizes were actually won, the probability that all of the 6 really big prizes were won (rides with lance, trek bikes, and VW jettas) is small. It's quite possible that none of them were won (it's also possible that none of them actually existed, and that they used phantom prizes as "bait" to get people to play the game and see their advertising).


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## RkFast (Dec 11, 2004)

Guys...I work in the promotions industry and put together these promotions all the time..lemme tell you how its done. 

Im almost positive that the "1-22" number was not something that either Trek or the promotion administrator, the company Trek hired to run the game, aimed for. More likely that they just threw a huge number of prizes in the pot, knowing that the odds of winning would be a good number they could brag about when they divided the number of prizes against the total "universe" of games cards in circulation. Thats it. Its a basic rule of instant win games...throw a huge number of low end prizes out there so the odds of winning any prize becomes a number you can promote. The odds of winning the big prizes is still pretty small.

Regarding the prize pool, I have to say Im very impressed. The prize pool for this promotion was absolutely huge. On a scale of 1-10, it was a solid 10 in terms of sheer size, matched only by the well-known "Ed McMahon" and McDonald's prize promotions we know about. Not only that, but the fulfillment costs to mail out the tens of thousands of low end prizes will also be significant. A dirrty little secret for these promotions is that Trek is not obligated to give away unclaimed prizes under $25. But the rest of the prizes they myst. So even if you didnt win (I didnt), you still have to applaud Trek for ponying up big big dough for us to try and win. And check the rules for a "Second Chance Draw" and how to enter that, becuase again, if its unclaimed and over $25 in value, Trek MUST give those items away by law.

Regarding how winner's are chosen, Im guessing that the prize pool was randomly "divided up" between the offline game pieces and the online game. The offline winners were seeded in the traditional way. Online, some kind of time-based algorithim was probably used, where winners were "seeded" according to what time they played. For example, the game application was programmed so that the first person to play at a certain, pre determined time is a winner, everyone else is not. Its a pretty safe and fair method of distributing the prizes. 

All and all a fun game. I would have done it a bit differently in a few areas (the online game application was built very poorly), but overall, the game worked well for them.


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## CFBlue (Jun 28, 1999)

I ran about 20 emails (bored here) and one morning came away with 10 wins in a row!? I was really suprised at that. All bottle, bars and keychains, but I was suprised to grab two bottles in a row. 

K


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