Turn a SINGLE RAFFLE TICKET into a
live auction item that raises THOUSANDS!!

Our Benefit Bidding team will provide you with creative, fun, and easy ways to raise more money.  In a past blog, we shared how we helped one of our clients raise $2,200 simply by auctioning the opportunity for one table of guests to be the first in the buffet line.

Here is how it works:

Once you have procured the donation of a raffle prize item which will be highly sought after by your supporters, sell as many raffle tickets as you can.  Do this before your event and at the event. But, if you are selling a finite number of raffle tickets, be sure to refrain from selling the last raffle ticket.  This last raffle ticket will become a live auction item – The Tenth Ticket.

Prior to the live auction, if you still have any remaining raffle tickets (other than The Tenth Ticket), make one last announcement about the raffle and sell as many raffle tickets as possible.

Then, during the live auction, at the time that your auctioneer is ready to auction The Tenth Ticket:   The auctioneer will announce it is time for the raffle.  The auctioneer will ask the event chair/auction/honorary chair/dignitary to draw 9 tickets from the drum.  The names of the 9 ticket holders are announced. The 9 tickets drawn are placed in a “Finalist” bowl/hat.  (To make the process even more exciting, music could be played after each name and cheering and clapping encouraged “celebrate” each of the 9 ticket holders.)

The auctioneer then reaches in his pocket and pulls out the Tenth Ticket and announces that he will auction this ticket.  The winning high bidder of this ticket will then have a 1 in 10 chance of winning the raffle.  He also reminds the 9 people who already have a ticket in the finalist bowl/hat, that they can also bid on the ticket – because if they are the high winning bidder of the Tenth Ticket, they will have a 2 in 10 chance to win the raffle!

The auctioneer then sells the “Tenth Ticket.”

The “Tenth Ticket” with winning bidder name is added to finalist bowl/hat with the other 9 tickets.

Auction chair/event chair/honorary chair/dignitary then draws the winning ticket from the finalist bowl/hat.

Dependent upon the raffle prize, we have seen the Tenth Ticket raise anywhere from $1,000 to $20,000  –  Not bad for an item which was totally free for the non-profit.

The Tenth Ticket also melds quite well at events with a “Casino Theme.”

Have questions?  Click here to contact us!

About Lloyd Cooper

Lloyd is Benefit Bidding’s founder and lead auctioneer. After his graduation from Missouri Auction School in 1990, he founded Lloyd Cooper Auctioneers. He is an active member of the Texas Auctioneers Association (TAA), National Auctioneers Association (NAA), graduate of the Professional Ringman Institute, graduate of the NAA Benefit Auctioneer Specialist (BAS) program and holds the CAI designation from the NAA. Lloyd previously served on the Board of Directors of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation – Northeast Texas Chapter. Lloyd is a U.S. Navy veteran. In his free time, Lloyd is an amateur vintner and owns a private vineyard. He has dabbled as a brewmeister and received a national award for his American Pale Ale. Lloyd enjoys golfing and sporting clays, skeet, and trap.