Take your pick:
An all expense paid trip to Paris
A junket to Sharjah to catch some cricket action
Pieces of the Berlin Wall
A chauffer-driven Mercedes for 30 days
Two seats dedicated in a theatre for the month
A modem, a PC and a bit of luck are all you need to win big on the net.
Lesson 1: Persistence Pays
"There is no single trick to winning online," says Arvind K, marketing head of Vindia. "In a skill-based game, you need to persist and get a feel of the game. Once you have got a hang of it, your chances are much better, for instance, the Catch Game at Pepsizone or similar flash games at Contests2win."
"The trick is also to take part as many times as possible, if the contest allows you to do so. We have had people taking part up to 25-50 times to increase their chances. And it does. It would help if the site offers multiple prizes as well." says Arvind K
Adds Alok Kejriwal of Contests2Win.com: "The contests are not purchase-linked or slogan-based. So it is your luck usually, and in some skill-driven contests, your abilities that can make all the difference."
Lesson 2: Ride Your Luck
Ashok Cherian of MTV India has a simple bit of advice: pray hard. "We get around 8,000 to 15,000 entries per contest. And it’s just a matter of luck. No tricks really.” His pointers: "A unique name might help in arresting attention, but that is really it.’’
"There are some people who win with amazing regularity,” admits Arvind K. "Because a lot of games have patterns which are easy to crack, like sattabazaar, a share market game, on Indya. The prices of all shares begin at 10 paise and go up for a period of time, so making money is almost guaranteed.”
Lesson 3: You should seriously think of relocating.
Where you stay could make all the difference between winning and participating. As Cherian says: "We do try to ensure a fair geographic distribution of prizes."
Contests2Win, however, has no such criteria. "In fact, we have a proprietary C2W Winning Engine software that generates random winners and is tamper proof," says Kejriwal.
Lesson 4: Don’t be too choosy
After all, you are paying for it with just your time and energy. And having fun too. "From CDs to undies… kuch bhi chalega," says Cherian. "People love free ka maal. Of course, if you thrown in a Ford Ikon… their josh will be boundless."
Lesson 5: But keep your eye on the big ones.
Winning a CD or a mug might be a good beginning, but a Ford Ikon is a Ford Ikon. Someone has to win and it may as well be you. "There is a regular pack of bounty-hunters who keep returning. Because the main attraction is to move beyond the boring games and win big prizes," says Arvind K
Lesson 6: Different strokes for different blokes
"In our trade2win section, we have an entire stock broking community that trades virtual stocks to win free Infosys shares," says Kejriwal. So, if you are a hardcore stock punter, that’s where you should be going.
Lesson 7: Stay in touch
Get an email account just for all your contests. Otherwise you could miss the bus to that holiday in Paris.
And, in case you are not a contest-junkie, you will save your regular account from getting flooded with junk mail. "Non-regular contestants hate junk mail. But the regular contestant usually has an email account specifically to find out about the new contests taking place on the site. Only 0.01 per cent of our players unsubscribe to the C2W newsletter," informs Kejriwal
Lesson 8: Listen to the experts
"Take part in everything: big or small. You have nothing to lose and you never know when you will strike lucky," says Odette Periera who has won a knife, a Parker Pen (at Indiatimes.com) and – the big one – an all expense paid trip to Sharjah at Contests2win.com.
I have found my reason to stay online. Have you?