A few more words about this game. Our event was an all-adult dinner of supportive community members there to help us raise funds. So we didn't really have the problem of someone "peeking" and opening their box early. People set them by their plates and everyone opened them when the announcer instructed. (Otherwise, if the winner opened hers right when she bought it, knew she won, and started shouting, no one else would buy boxes.)
Also, the contents weren't totally obvious on ours. It's not like there was a fortune cookie slip saying "you are a winner". If the winner had opened hers early and seen she had beads and a baby, she wouldn't necessarily have known that meant she was the grand prize winner. As opposed to someone who had beads and a green coin or beads and gold coin.
So if you have less control of your environment, you need to be trickier on the contents.
How about some other version of the "Jewelry Box" game I described in another post? You could have the packages be boxes, envelopes, something to tied into a theme based on your prize.
Note - the fact is, this is probably all "gambling". But be careful what words you use. Teach your officers not to use the word "raffle". At our school, we couldn't do a raffle (printed tickets, pre-sold), but we could do "drawings" where we only sold tickets at the door and called out a winner. Choose your nouns carefully. Jewelry Box Game - A piece of jewelry was the prize. (Last year's group had a necklace/earring set worth about $700 donated. We couldn't get a donation, but found a diamond tennis bracelet valued $595 on a clearance sale which we got for about $70). Get 100 small boxes and decorate nicely with pretty ribbon. Stack around the jewelry and sell boxes for $5 each with instructions not to open until announcer says. The boxes have a piece of paper or other indicator of who the winner is. Until "unveiling" attendees leave them sitting on their (dinner) table so others see and hopefully buy a chance. Ours was a Mardi Gras theme, so we had a set of beads and gold plastic coin in each of the "loser" boxes. Door prize winners (3) had beads plus a colored plastic coin, and they each got a small prize. The big winner of the jewelry had beads plus a baby (like in the cakes) in their box.
It's a fun game. Our costs were less than $100. Revenue was $500. For the boxes, look in wedding supplies for "favor" boxes. They run about $20 for 100, but at many stores (Michael's, Joann's) they have coupons.
Note - you need a backup plan in case all boxes not sold. (i.e., what if winning box not sold when you unveil.) For us, we numbered the boxes in small print on the bottom and the committee stuffed all the boxes as "losers". Later - one person went back and re-stuffed the grand prize winner box and 3 doorprizes, noting the box numbers. She was the only one who knew. If we hadn't sold them all, she could have checked what was left. Our backup would have been that we drew numbers from a hat.
I am volunteering for a private preschool that is housed in a church and the church will not allow "gambling" (i.e. raffles). We are doing a silent auction but I think we will have one big ticket item donated that would raise more money if we could do a raffle vs auction. Are there any ideas out there that would give us similar results to a raffle without it being a raffle??? tia.
