Harmor wrote:
My understanding is that the organizers don't actually have to front the whole bill. They basically get 'insurance' and pay a regular fee based on the unlikelyhood of something like this happening (i.e. a half-court shot, hitting a bulls-eye etc...).
That's most likely the case. I remember here in Boston that Jordan's Furniture did contests like 2-3 years in a row which happened to be during the Red Sox past 2 World Series wins where people who bought things during at like the first week of the season would get all their money back which means free furniture. That was all paid through their insurance company. I remember listening to a radio show a couple days after that and they were saying how much some people made. There were your average families that would redecorate their whole house and get over $10k back. There were even people that refurnished whole hotels, I think one guy got back his full $60k after replacing every bed in his hotel.
And I know that one's not as unlikely, but I remember even for a Super Bowl a few years ago, that some business in Chicago did a similar thing when the Bears got to the Super Bowl. They had a contest where they would pay their customers back in full if the game started with a Bears kick return for a touchdown. How often does that happen? Well guess what, it did, and that business made a killing because again, insurance paid for it. Even if there's a slight chance of people winning, they'll enter.
*Not directly posted toward you Harmor, just backing up the fact that insurance would pay for it.
