I went in on an office lottery thing, we won 20k, ended up being about 500 ea. In takehome But still nice, it was mostly about the thrill of winning more than the winnings themselves, it was my first time buying in. I also won a 400 dollar smart watch at a work raffle.

Back in the mid 90’s, I won a “Rocko’s Modern Life,” t-shirt from a Nickelodeon contest. It was one where you’d have to call a phone # when his face would pop up in the bottom corner or something like that for like 10 seconds. Caller # whatever, could win the grand prize or whatever but I got a tee. Wore that shirt with pride all the fucking time.

Scholarship. When I was still in school.

I won an Xbox 360 a long time ago from a Coca Cola competition. You had to use codes from the bottle caps and then quickly answer some quiz questions correctly. But you had unlimited tries. So I just kept clicking random answers quickly until I got all questions right at a ridiculously low time.

Good times. Borrowed Guitar Hero, LA Noire, Batman Arkham Asylum and Red Dead Redemption at the library, had a blast.

My phone service provider used to do daily roulette type giveaways.

I won a free return flight to basically anywhere in Europe.

I actually never did anything with it, because at the time I couldn’t afford to pay for someone else to go with me (I would have gone with my partner).

I regret not just flying on my own, but them’s the rubs - I was, and am, a bit of an idiot.

I also once won a game key by making a funny YouTube comment on a Unit Lost video once too - but I never used that either; it wasn’t a game I was interested in, I just liked to watch the vids for a bit of a laugh.

I don’t win much, but when I do I squander my wins.

We had a raffle at the local community center. Everyone bought tickets, and the prizes seemed decent (bottle of wine, large wicker chair, rocking horse). The winner of all three draws was the long-standing cleaning lady of the center, who had just had a grandchild and was heading for retirement.

I’m all for supporting someone’s retirement, especially for someone who has given a lot of effort to making the community feel hospitable.
But not like this, not like this…

Just some minor nonsense. But all of it yields a fun memory.

I won a hat from a Wario Ware (Wii) tournament at my country’s biggest nerd-convention circa 2009. Got like a 15 minigame lead on the second place too.

I won a(n imported, we’re brazilian, these were never published here) copy of a My Little Pony Comic Omnibus from a giveaway at an MLP forum I participated in some 10 years ago. I never read the physical comic, it just sits untouched at my shelf. I just read the pirated .cbr

A few months later my SO won a Hot Topic Vinyl Figure of Princess Luna (also imported) from another giveaway at the same forum, and gifted it to me.

I won a poetry competition when I was 15, but submitted the poem for my little bro. He ended up winning, getting in the local paper, getting published in a book, meeting a big celebrity for a photo etc.

Never won any award with my own two books, which I spent a lot more time on!

Radio question. Sibling knew the answer, but didn’t want to call. Mother was driving. So I called. Have the answer. It was correct and I was the first. We won tickets to some young kids show and gave them to a family friend.

I also won a Weird Al lookalike contest. Despite being female. I was one of three people there and the only one trying. Which meant Hawaiian shirt, my old huge glasses, and permed my hair. Got front row tickets for that, which is all I wanted so my very short sibling could see the concert. Also got to meet him though, that was nice.

I won a geolocation game from Rita’s and got a year of free Italian Ices. Every day during March they gave out a geolocation and you had a certain amount of time to find them to win. The first few days i missed the time limit. A couple times i was second. After a week or so i noticed a general pattern and started closer to the part of town i thought they would be. The day i won i was in the parking lot of the stadium where they were and watched them setting up. as soon as they sent out the geolocation i walked up and claimed my prize.

Ahhh, I’ve won a goodly number of things.

Back in school, me and this one girl spent years going back and forth as spelling bee winners.

Won a watermelon seed spitting contest.

Jr high, I didn’t win shit except some bad memories, but that’s off topic lol.

High school, I took a couple of weightlifting wins.

After that, as an adult, it was more hit or miss. Never anything worth money, or not enough to matter.

I am still absurdly proud of winning a biscuit cookoff at the county fair. Not even joking, I was up against old southern ladies that had been making biscuits longer than my dad had been alive. I had been working on perfecting my recipe at that point for about ten years. I won that fucking ribbon twice. It’s all about technique, how you handle the dough.

While it was kinda low key, no prizes, no ribbons, nothing physical, I won a cross school sparring session at the dojo I went to. We cross trained with several other dojos of various arts. But the guy that owned our dojo got five of those to all get together and do this big session.

Basically, you go in and you spar. Light contact only, you have to protect your training partner. But you get in the circle and you go until you tap, or someone scores a hit that would be a KO. Next person steps in when that happens. I was taking classes in both Japanese jujutsu and American kempo. This was maybe a year into things, so I was still raw as hell.

We were in three groups, beginners, intermediate and advanced. I was thrown into intermediate. I can’t recall how many of us were there total. I wanna say it was a little over a dozen in that group, plus maybe twenty in the beginners, and a handful in advanced.

Anyway, I was third in. I did the full group. Got damn close to an actual KO when an axe kick was faster than I thought. Was damn near choked or otherwise close to tapping more than I can recall. I was breathing fire and eating bitter. Like, my throat was in more pain than anything else because it doesn’t matter how well you hydrate, you’re panting and struggling so hard it gets dry in seconds. And I had to pause twice to vomit, hence eating bitter lol. I can’t recall the japanese phrase for it.

Anyway, the first two guys cycled back in, and I managed to scrape out an arm bar and a leg lock. The circle starts again, and I’m wiped. Like, my arms are rubber, I’m dizzy and can’t see straight, I’m wobbling all over the place. I don’t even remember the last two guys. But the last one got me. Basically just pushed me over lol. I had nothing left in the tank. But I was the only one in any of the groups to go a full circle.

I have no clue where it came from. I’m not exactly Mr stamina. I was a power lifter, I wasn’t built for that kind of sustained effort. I damn sure didn’t manage the feat the next meetup lol. Did well, but not running the circle well.

But! I did get my dinner and drinks paid for out of it.

Later on, as a bouncer, I got into some real fights and some of those were way less of a “win” in my mind.

About the only thing I’ve ever won that came with enough money to amount to anything was a chili cookoff. Prize was a hundred for the winner. So, you know, not a big prize or anything. This was small time stuff. I did do some other cooking stuff at a state level, but never got wins. I spent that hundred on my nephew. He wanted a guitar, and had been saving. He had found one he liked at a pawn shop, and was short something like fifty bucks. So I gave him the hundred to finish it off and get some strings or whatever.

I somehow managed to get through to a radio show that was having a giveaway, and answered their question correctly. I won tickets to a concert, and a load of their sponsor’s merch. I was still young, but even then I knew my luck was shit, so I was really excited even though I didn’t like the band I was going to see lol

Didn’t matter.

The tickets arrived the day after the concert had happened, and the merch was all either factory seconds or used (so all slightly damaged in some way - a stain, an undone seam, a broken clasp). I tried calling to let them know, but all they did was send another load of damaged merch.

Off the top of my head, that’s the one and only thing I’ve ever won.

I really do have shit luck lol

When I was still being taken to church I won the door prize at youth group (church for teens) one night during a special event we were running (some thing to encourage people to invite their non-believing school friends and show how “hip” and “fun” they were, there were raffles and video games alongside our usual “live music”, skate ramps and bbq). The prize itself was a mobile phone. I was so happy because I didn’t already have one, but ultimately my parents decided I couldn’t have/use it until I got a job to pay for the credit. I did eventually get a job at KFC and was able to use the phone.

Another time I was visiting NZ with my parents and we were touring the base of a mountain and the guide was like “guess the height and whoever gets closest wins this pen”, I won but my mum made me give the pen back because she thought I’d cheated somehow? Idfk. Still a bit salty about the pen.

Yesterday I visited a new fantasy themed bar/restaurant, and they had D20 shots. It was my first time there, and of course I rolled a 20.

I got a 2oz lemon drop shot and got to keep the glass

Nope. But my GF is one of the luckiest people on earth. By now she won a car, 3 holidays, a travel bag, heck we are going to holiday on ice this Sunday, we bought the ticket last year, and we picked the only spot where thommy ten and amélie van tass have a show. We got upgraded hotels multiple times for free, she even once got a graphic designer monitor for half the price due to something.