The tyranny of timidity ...

We all know the old sayings, "nothing ventured, nothing gained", "faint heart never won fair maid","fortune favours the bold" or "the greatest crime in life is to do nothing".

But how many of us apply those adages in our daily lives?

How many of us are ruled by worry about loss, of risk, of taking a chance and not having it come off? Or of the fear of being fooled, or even of being seen as a fool?

All that is human, understandable, and even has some logic to it.

But we also know see people who've made things happen for themselves, sometimes even in only a small way, by having a go, taking a flutter, being brave.

And what's the difference between them and the grey people? Nothing save that they took action.

One has to be smart about these things, of course. It's pointless to toss a lot of money into a lottery where the odds against you are millions and millions to one against. The other day one of the giant lotteries, offering one chance in 500,000,000 to win their megaprize, was selling tickets at the rate of 2.7 million tickets an hour -- an hour!

And to what end? Who in the world could actually use, spend, put to any good use, the multi-millions in that jackpot? (Which in the end didn't go to an individual anyway, but to a number of people spread across three different countries.)

Do you need or want to have your life turned totally upside down? To suddenly acquire a thousand new friends and hangers-on, lawyers, advisors, bloodsucking opportunists rampaging through your life?

Is that what you really would like? Do you think it would be healthy for you, for your children, for your whole family? Who really wants that responsibility, that burden? Too much of a good thing is as bad as not enough.

Putting things in perspective, we're offering you something that's in proportion, reasonable gain effectively without risk . Yes, our property raffle requires a commitment on your part, a small step of faith, but you're protected from loss.

The risk is eliminated by our hotel voucher, which comes free with the ticket, and which means you can't lose money even if you don't win a house or studio.

To make things even easier, the whole project is human-sized, in a harmonious balance, with the entries limited to only 33,333 people and with ten winners to be drawn among them.

The prizes are big enough to make your life a bit more comfortable, a bit more secure, and a bit more fun, but not so overwhelming as to turn it upside down.

Just a quick review of what you put in and what you might get out:

A ticket, which includes a voucher for use in our hotels, is priced at 150 euros (£100 or $200)

The biggest win is worth 500,000 euros (£350,000 or $600,000)

The smallest win is worth about half that amount.

The other eight prizes are worth somewhere in between.

But there are no losers because even the people who don't win a property prize get to redeem their 150 euros in one of our hotels (and maybe eventually other hotels).

Or sell their vouchers or give them away to family, friends, or colleagues.

So what's the only way in which you could lose?

Only in doing nothing. Standing pat. Failing to act.

And we all know that apathy and inaction are the biggest killers of life, fun, vitality.

Anyone who has had contact with elderly people will tell you that the most common regrets they feel don't have to do with things they have done, but rather the things they haven't done -- the dream not followed, the travels not taken, the apology not offered, the path of love not pursued.

All that music inside, and they let it die.

Don't let it happen to you.

Don't let timidity win. Act.

http://www.winaholidayhomeinspain.com

Oh yeah sure!

"The only raffle in the world where you can't lose?" Can this possibly be true?

Which is the response I suspect many people had when they saw our headline for the first time. Or as my teenage kids would say, "Yeah, sure."

But it's true and we can prove it. Let me tell you the story.

To be perfectly candid, we didn't design it this way from the beginning -- we're not that smart. It happened by accident, and you can thank Congressman Jim Leach of Iowa (defeated in the elections two weeks ago because he recently shoved through the Internet Gambling Bill), for the generosity of our offer.

We started off -- after our adventures with the wannabes, the hotel shark agents and the Mafia money launderers -- just wanting to sell those ten glorious properties using a raffle.

It all seemed so simple, so straightforward: sell some tickets, draw some winners, and hey presto, we've got our price and ten people would get ten lovely holiday homes.

But when the US Congress passed Leach's law outlawing online gambling, our lawyers became worried that we might lose one of our biggest markets. That is, we're perfectly legal in Europe, and technically speaking there seemed to be nothing against Americans buying a ticket, but we didn't want any potential hassle, so we decided to offer the hotel vouchers.

Which is how we got to our headline about "can't lose". It's actually simple. You buy a raffle ticket for 150 euros. We give you a 150 euro hotel voucher free. You use the hotel voucher (or sell it or give it away) and that gives you your money's worth or your money back. You take part in the raffle free.

A few tough questions about the raffle venture ...

George Scott was interviewed recently on Mallorca Radio regarding the Scott Properties raffle and voucher project, and we thought you might be interested in what was said. Here's a transcript.

Rafael Pons (the host of the show) "Dr Scott, could I begin by asking ..."

George Scott (interrupting) "Could we make that 'George' please?"

RP "'George' is fine with me. But now, since our time is limited I'd like to skip the usual pleasantries and ask you about a few of the claims you are making for your property raffle. Your website calls it the 'world's only "can't lose" raffle'. How can you justify that?"

GS "Thank you for asking. The truth is, there may be another property raffle in China or Timbuktu that offers the same guarantees, but if there is we don't know about it and so we're making that 'world's only' claim, which is based simply on the fact that we are giving away a ticket to the raffle free with every purchase of one of our hotel vouchers for 150 euros."

RP "Wait a minute. I thought we were being tempted to buy a raffle ticket and get a hotel voucher free."

GS "Legal technicality. Because the USA now has a law against Internet gambling, our lawyers had to make sure that what our raffle club members were investing in wasn't a gamble. Well, it's not a gamble if you get full value for whatever you pay for, so if you acquire one of our hotel vouchers you participate in the property drawings free. It's a sales promotion for the vouchers. That's the way the law works."

RP "And this 'guarantee'?"

GS "Same thing. It just means you get something of value no matter what happens. The vouchers can be used or given away or sold. They will always be worth something."

RP "What I also wanted to ask is about all your foreign ticket buyers. If they live far away, why would they want a holiday home here?"

GS "Well, if I offered you the chance to own a lovely home in Japan for only 150 euros, especially if you could get your 150 euros back, you'd take it wouldn't you? You could sell it, of course, or you could rent it out and get good income from it. And you do also need to know that many of our ticket and voucherholders live less than a two hour flight away. But if people live too far way to use the hotel voucher they can always sell it -- eBay is a good place to do so."

RP "Do people ever doubt your credibility, wonder whether this is a scam or not?"

GS "Not many people, at least once they take on board how public we are. After all, we've been around for 18 years now, standing in the sunlight, open to public inspection. The hotels are all over the Internet and in every decent guidebook, and we personally are as available as possible. We're not celebrities by any means, but we're out in the open. You want to talk to me? Come to the restaurant, walk upstairs to where I live and knock on the door. I may not guarantee to be pleased to see you if it's late at night, but I'll be there."

RP "Fine. I promise not to come at midnight. What about noon?"

GS "Noon's OK, but by then I'm usually in one or other of the hotels. But you're welcome to visit."

RP "Let me get back to the subject. Isn't it going to take you a long time to sell 33,000 tickets for the raffle?"

GS "It could, but on the other hand that's really just down to publicity and advertising. We had more than 5,000 people respond to a quarter page -- really not even that big -- article in The Sunday Express. I've actually been ducking publicity for the last few months because it became clear to me that our administrative system wasn't set up to handle a high volume of enquiries and sales. That's much improved now, but it took a long time to set up the data bases and all the security functions, which are now in place. Unbelievably complicated, all that stuff, and we had to hire in several outside experts. But now we're setting up sales offices in the USA and Germany, so things will go faster. It's still going to take awhile, but I'd rather do it right gradually than wrong in a hurry."

RP "I'd like to go on with this interview, but I see we're out of time. May I ask you back again soon?"

GS "Of course. My pleasure. Thank you for inviting me."

INTERVIEW ENDS, BUT MAY CONTINUE NEXT WEEK.

So what's wrong with a little hope?

Any other reasons why you should participate in this property raffle?

The real question is "Why not?" The cost isn't prohibitive, the odds are reasonable, and the prizes are valuable and life enrichening.

Imagine a bored angel sitting up there somewhere dangling her feet over the edge of a cloud and deciding, on a whim, that you, me, or that guy over there, should be treated to a sweet piece of good luck. She looks at us all, and then decides to point at you.

Now all she needs is a mechanism to deliver her sumptuous gift. Your responsibility is to give her a way to reward you for all you've done that deserves rewarding. But if you don't make it simple for her, if you don't provide her with an easy way of dropping her bounty upon you, then she just might get fed up with the whole process and decide to point at somebody else.

Give your angel a chance to make your day, your month, your next ten years. Invest in a voucher at www.winaholidayhomeinspain.com.

A company - people - you can trust.

"But why should I trust you?" I hear you say. "Why should I trust you when I don't know you?" Well, we would ask why not? We've been in business for 18 years, right out in the public eye, in all the guidebooks, available to the whole world and even mildly famous for what we do. Scammers stay in the shadows, but we stand in the sunlight. This whole raffle is very simple -- it's time for us to retire and we've chosen this method as a way to put our beloved houses and studios into the hands of real people instead of a faceless corporation or hotel chain. There are other reasons, too, which you can read about elsewhere on the website, but the main point is, what may seem unusual to you is simply an opportunity that might not ever present itself again. So let yourself feel that tingle of hope that you might be one of our ten winners. Somebody is going to win -- ten somebodies are going to win -- why not you?

Not simply a holiday home, a time machine ...

2,100 years ago, a Roman soldier or terrace builder would have stood on our hilltop, looking at much the same view you see today (minus the Christian church, of course).

That's what history is like out here in the Mediterranean; you can't stand next to an ancient gnarled olive tree without thinking about the generations of people who cared for it, took its fruit, watched it grow all their lives.

And some men here care for the stone terraces that lace the hillsides in exactly the same way that there forefathers did, the 70 generations stretching back to those original Roman builders.

So owning one of these properties isn't just a pleasure, it's also a responsibility, a responsibility to maintain the continuity of the history that belongs to this place.

What has this to do with buying a raffle ticket? Not much, on the surface, but this is simply to put you on notice that if you win, you won't just be taking on a valuable property, you'll be inheriting a bit of history.

But is it legal for USA citizens to buy tickets/vouchers?

According to our law firm in Washington, US citizens and residents may legally participate in the drawings. It's a technicality, of course, but we all know that that's what lawyers need to specialize in, but in this case because ALL of the money you pay us is applied to the hotel voucher, and NONE of it to the drawings, that means that what we are doing is giving away the properties, and that isn't prohibited.

In other words, you aren't gambling because you get full value for the hotel voucher. The drawings may or may not be an incentive for you to purchase a voucher (!) but just as any merchant anywhere may offer an incentive to his customers to increase sales, we are offering an incentive to people to increase our sales of the 150 euro hotel vouchers. The fact that one of them may win a 500,000 euro house is legally irrelevant; the real point is that you can't lose.

In any event, we are told that a) the new law is unlikely to stand -- it has lots of carve-out exceptions in it anyway, including poker, horse racing and lotteries -- since the Iowa congressman who sponsored it was doing so in order to protect the casinos operating in his state, and b) that there has been a heavy backlash against it from the 35 million Americans who gamble online. It seems that at the current moment it isn't being enforced (not that we look at that as anything meaningful). We went to a lot of trouble and expense to be legal, and it seems we are.