[quote name='plasticbathmonki']Wow, a one post lurker won...Not that any of us had a better chance, but it is disheartening.[/QUOTE]
The fact that some one post lurker won means this contest is truly random (and fair from Cheapy's side), which is awesome and I really appreciate the fact that CheapyD did this. I'd probably be more suspicious if someone with an average of 20 posts per day won - it would feel like this is a good-old-boy contest and since I don't "contribute" as much, I have no chance of winning and it would probably drive me away from participating. Again: props for making it completely random!
And while I'd hate to add more contestant remorse into the pool (besides it is against the spirit of Thanksgiving!) and honestly I didn't try really hard to win and wasn't expecting to, and yes it is true my 20+ posts may make me a lurker -- BUT -- for future contests I really have to ask this: what sort of quality controls are in place for these types of contests?
What prevents me from making 20-30 dummy accounts (around the time the contest is announced) and getting 5-10 tickets with each? This may not seem like alot, but a 5% chance of winning as opposed to a .01% chance of winning is HUGE! Having done some handicapping myself, I know people have gambled way more on less odds.
I understand some of the potential counter arguments: this user registered before the contest was announced (11/9 as opposed to 11/10) and were all friends so who here on CAG would do that? To the first point, if I were cheating, I'd play around with the timezones to make it look like I was registering before the contest was announced to cover my tracks or maybe the timezone the message was posted in was different from the user's timezone - by several hours. To the second point, there is the gray area every CAG knows well and that is the exploit. How many of you signed up for different accounts for Google cash back or other type programs? How many of you have returned new games to other stores to get credit? The steaks (and reward) are much higher in this contest so basic game theory (no pun intended) dictates that you would do the exact same thing here.
I love the CAG community and it has helped my cheapass save a lot of money. And I really want to send props to "thenewnumbertwo" - but without looking at the new user registration statistics, I also have to wonder if "pinkpnay", " (registered also on 11/9 1 post with 6 awards), "trickyM66" and "uvmonkey75" (same reg dates and stats) are the same person or someone else. Again, this is a relatively small sample and it would take much more time to compile something... but I can see why some of the suspicions are justified.
Again, please don't take this as a sour grapes type argument - I'm happy with the benefits CAG has provided me - just wanted to give some food for thought!