Will someone write review like this, also to http://biddingmadness.com . In my opinion it’s very similar auction site. And they have only s.c. centauctions.
If it wasn’t illegal directly, it would be illegal to do this without a gambling license in the U.K.
A coworker of mine has actually fallen victim to this site. Snapping up his 8GB iPod Nano for a mear $120, but he had bid over 100 times.
And it’s not that he isn’t intelligent, but he is foreign.
I used to think puppy killers were evil… but no longer…
great post!!!
Ingenious, yes. Sleazy, looks like it.
But in the larger scheme of the world, our politicians, waste of tax dollars, lies we tolerate and so forth, this is very small.
How sad. It’s people’s own greed pulling them down… if EVERYONE would just get together and stop fighting to win. We could put this immoral site out of business by getting them to sell most products for under a buck. Unfortunately, as we see, greed is a powerful thing.
Nice to see user CaC03 biding the price up to over $1000 for a Pharos PTL600 GPS Phone on swoopo.com (Auction ID: 127325) and at the same time pushing an Apple iPhone 3G 8GB to over 500 on swoopo.co.uk (Auction ID: 127325)
No hint of anything amiss of course just a coincidence of course!
You’d have to be very gullible (and there are a lot of gullible people out there) to fall for swoopo.
First question is, why should you (or would you) pay the store to shop there? If you have to pay to play, you are gambling not shopping.
As a business model, combination of gambling and shopping is brilliant but it is no different than lose weight fast and get rich fast industry.
It just goes to show how many morons can afford a computer today and have nothing better to do with their time but to sit on their fat butts and gamble from comfort of their own home.
To those claiming this is not based on chance:
It is based on unknowable variables. If this is deterministic, then so is a coin flip or a roulette wheel- both are based on physics.
So, you think capitalism is evil?
What’s wrong with a business model centered on making money?
To those claiming this is based on chance, go back to school and take that probability course again.
Unknown variables is NOT chance.
A game of chance is where the same action can result in different results. A coin flip returns two different results with equal probability. A roulette wheel has more results with lower probabilities.
Swoopo is NOT a game of chance. It is merely competition with money tied into it. There is only one action: pay and play. It always results in the same result: increase by 0.15 cents. There are no other possible results!
Another spooky website that does exactly the same rubbish: http://www.madbid.com , apparently registered in the UK. I wonder if this stuff is legal here.
This is an awesome site, an awesome real-life study in game theory, and it would be criminal to force it to shut down. (Does your condemnation extend to state lotteries?)
I’ve always wanted to run a dollar auction in real life. Here’s something that did happen in real life, and I wish I could find a reference to it to back me up:
A magazine (Money?) offered a contest that you’d enter by writing down a number. The prize went to the highest number. The prize was a million dollars divided by the sum of all submitted numbers.
Obviously they were at no real risk, but it was interesting that they got entries which, even if they were the only entry in the contest, would have invalidated the prize. Like 3x5 cards covered with small-font 9’s.
Of course, they can be losing money on 70% of the auctions and still be Making Money Fast, just so long as they lose small when they lose and win big when they win.
Just another Mathematics Tax.
Good grief!
http://www.swoopo.com/auction/ds-nintendo-ds-lite-black/129451.html
Savings:
Worth up to: $129.99
Placed bids (220): $165.00
FreeBids (0): $0.00
Final price: $94.80
Savings: $0.00
Online gambling is illegal in the US and this is definitely what Swapoo or other lowest unique bid auctions are (even if not yet busted by the authorities).
To be considered online gambling, you need 3 criterias:
-
A consideration. Here you pay to bid. It is like purchasing a lottery ticket and you are most likely to get nothing in exchange but 1 chance out of N to win.
-
A game of chance, which will determine who the winner is. While some may argue that bidding requires some skills and determinism, many states actually don’t make any difference in their online gambling definition between skilled games and chance games. (Poker requires skills).
-
A Prize or the ability to win something of value. (or get nothing but wasting time and money).
This should be regulated as any other gambling business and not allowed to spread on greed and foolishness.
Many will pay to learn and eventually too much scam will kill this scam until a new variation or evolution of the scam comes around for new and fresh victims or short minded people.
Most scams are based on smart and sleek mechanisms. It does not make them right.
It reminds me of the guy that placed an ad in the news paper with:
How to become a millionaire?
Send 0.99 cents to receive the incredible secret. Success guaranteed or your money back.
I sent the 99 cents and received a letter saying: Just do like me! 
By the way, the stock market could fit the definition but at least it is supposed to be regulated. You pay, You Play and most of the time you loose.
Wow, this site must be crazily profitable. After reading your article I decided to watch a couple of auctions while I ate lunch. I watched a $130 Nintendo DS gross them $186.30. Which was a pretty impressive profit, but paled into comparison as I watched one of the freebid auctions. The concept of 100% off auctions is simply brilliant on their part, there’s no cap to the bidding. In about 30 minutes of watching the auction of 50 bids (worth 37.50) it has been under a minute to go the whole time. It finally sold at a bid of $125.40, meaning people had spent $627, a profit of 1672%. Furthermore I saw an auction for $80 cash, that had brought in over 800…These guys must have become millionaires in the first month, off of simple human greed and stupidity.
The key difference between being a lottery and being an auction is that in a lottery system you cannot guarantee yourself a win, no matter what you do or how many tickets you buy. Here, to guarantee a win, you simply keep bidding til everyone else stops. This may increase the price of the product beyond what you had hoped, but you ultimately have the final say as to whether or not you will stop bidding. This means that there is no chance involved in the process - unless, of course, you consider auctions lotteries as well.
I see it like a carnival game. In a carnival game, you pay $1 and get three balls. With these three balls you have to knock down 3 pins off a pedestal. If you succeed, you win an item that is worth far more than $1.
If you check the catalogs, should be a internet site also, you will find that the standard carnival prizes cost less then the $1, or whatever they are charging for the game. The ones that allow you to trade up are of less value then the min number of items you would need to trade up with.
What they are doing is illegal in most (all?) of the US.
The three elements that qualify it as an illegal lottery are all present. Chance. Prize. Consideration.
You pay to bid = Consideration
You may not win = Chance
You are bidding for an item = Prize
This isn’t even close to a grey area, it’s just illegal.