The good thing about being young and not having pets or children is that I tend to have some disposable time on my hands. On Tuesday, I used that time to feed my curiosity and go to a car dealership to see if I won in their Super Jackpot Sweepstakes.

That’s right.

Those fliers you get in the mail that you always toss right in the trash, yeah, I didn’t throw mine away. I was too curious, I needed to know if anyone ever actually won and what it was like. My mailer was super high-tech as you can see in the picture. I had to pull a tab so that the electronic screen lit up and revealed a code that I matched to my prize. Upon reading that I could have won $3,500, there was no way I wasn’t going to go to that dealership. I HAD to go! I called, made an appointment to come in, and did what anyone else would do in my situation – hopped on Facebook to see if anyone in my network had ever actually won one of these things before.

I talked to people that worked at car dealerships who explained that, legally, at least one person needed to win otherwise it was an illegal contest. Basically, it couldn’t be rigged. They also told me that the mailers, though sneakily worded, only guarantee you a CHANCE to win, not an actual prize.

The phrasing is so carefully crafted that you could read the fine print several times and still think you won. Finally, they told me that the likely scenario would be that I would show up and the numbers for the prizes at the dealership would be different than the numbers on the mailer. With all this great info, I embarked on my journey.

I showed up to the dealership at 5:00pm which was 30 minutes early. I was led to a card table, one of many, and introduced to a really nice woman who was flown in from Tennessee specifically for the event. I immediately saw the posterboard just two tables behind her with, you guessed it, completely different jackpot numbers that didn’t match my card. I can’t say I was shocked, but I needed to see how this whole thing would play out. While I waited for my representative to get through her spiel, I took in the whole scene: the law school student in front of me was threatening to file a lawsuit over the misleading mailer, the guy down the table from him made the rep check the board twice just in case he won but was quieted down when they handed him a complimentary smartwatch, and the women behind me who just came in for their free prize claimed they weren’t interested in a test drive because they only drove horse and buggies. If I had to sum up my entire experience, here are the salient points:

• Car dealership super jackpots probably will not result in you being a super jackpot winner
• If you want something for free, just go in and say you came to claim your prize. You don’t need to sit through the entire process, they don’t want to put up with you and will gladly fork over the free junk just to see you go so they can focus on a real buyer.
• Be nice, these people have to deal with very angry non-super jackpot winners all day so just be sure to use your manners.

I may never be a super jackpot winner, but at least I have satisfied my curiosity! And what was I going to do with all of that money anyways…