Tiebreakers
Most competitions have a couple of questions and a tiebreaker, e.g. "I want to win a trip to New York with McVities because..." in 10 words or less. The questions filter out the idiots but then there might be 500 qualifying entries for 1 top prize and 50 runners up.

So it's critical to make the tiebreaker as witty and clever as possible. Puns work pretty well. People who write something like "because I like biscuits", or "because I want to go to New York" may well not have bothered.

Take time to make the tiebreaker work and you stand a very good chance of winning.
(MagicMoose, Sat 30 Apr 2011, 17:48, 1 reply)

Wrong! nobody actually reads those tiebreakers!
They are just there so that the organisers can say that the competition is not a lottery (under Section 27 or 28 of the Gaming and Lotteries Act 1956 permission from a Garda Superintendent to run a lottery but this is not required for something which requires skill)

Those sms competitions normally include a trivia question such as What is 1+1?

A. 4
B. 2
C. Spongebob squarepants
(tubeman trousers, Sat 30 Apr 2011, 18:04, closed)

Well you tell me why we won so much
Most companies that run competitions do judge the tiebreaker. They even print the winning tiebreakers so you can see their quality. The fact that both of us won so much should demonstrate the point. My dad was even a member of comper clubs where other people had similar hauls. Basically if you put in the effort you won more.

If it weren't the case my dad and I wouldn't have won nearly as much.

As for ring-in / SMS competitions I don't know the rules at present but it used to be the case that a random draw had to free which is why some of them say "no purchase necessary". Usually to enter without purchasing is made quite inconvenient but it can still be done. But some draws dodge the issue by issuing a question with an obvious answer so they can pretend it is a game of skill and therefore charge a fee for entering, e.g. what colour is Kermit the Frog a) Green, b) Gold, c) Invisible.
(MagicMoose, Sat 30 Apr 2011, 21:14, closed)