This is BETTER Than LasVegas

Gambling has always been the general source of how people can earn a lot for a little. You bet 20 dollars on a hand of blackjack and double it in a second. Bet five bucks on a roulette number and make 4oX that. Sounds great up front until you realize that you're down a few hundred and leave a loser. Well I'm telling you forget all that misery because it's made to see you lose. 

I found this site last night after I read about peoples claims of buying a Nintendo Wii for 50 dollars and a Canon T1I camera for a hundred. I was very skeptical, but decided to look.   Swoopo.com has to be the most genius online business(LIVE auction) I have ever seen. It's essentially an auction site and works like a real auction (Ebay does not). Here's how this goes. They have regular auctions and penny auctions depending on the item for sale. For each bid placed by a user, the price of the item goes up 15 cents for regular and a penny for the penny auction. There is a countdown clock for each item wherein there is a reset value of 10,15,or 20 seconds. In order to win, you have to have placed the last bid within that reset value without anybody else bidding. Sounds never ending, but it actually works. 

Here's the big catch, HUGE catch. ENORMOUS catch. You have to pre-purchase bids for 75 cents each. Still not too bad if you have self control and wallet control. BUT if you lose and have used up a hundred bids for a Wii, then you just threw away 75 dollars my friend. The winner will have paid for the bids, but ends up paying the final bid price and receiving his/her item for like 80% off retail. 

Why do I think this is genius. Because the site makes more than 5x-10x  what the item is worth. Example: A penny auction whose final winning bid ended at 10 dollars means that the winner buys the item for 10 plus cost of bids spent(0.75 ea). not bad because the item is probably worth over a hundred. BUT to achieve a 10 dollar price there were a thousand bids placed (0.75x1000= 750 DOLLARS!!!)  The site just made 750 to sell a hundred dollar item. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Do I think this is criminal? should it be illegal?  Hell no because everyone is knowingly paying out of their pockets. And if you can buy a  fifty inch HDTV for $200 bucks then sign me up. So far I have watched a ton of the auctions and here are my findings:  

1. The site makes a lot of money. especially on the popular electronics. 
2. Sometimes(due to low bidding), the site loses money, but only on smaller items
3. Some winners end up paying more than the item is worth. (Very Stupid Bidding)
4. I Realllllly wish I thought of Swoopo.com before they did. 

So in the end it balances out and everyone is happy . Except for the losers of the auction who end up spending $300 in bids and getting nothing. 

This has been your random finding of the day from the Search Whiz.

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