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A friend of mine works in radio and he says that some of the contests are won by "loyal listeners" or friends of the hosts. The "winner" gets a text that basically says, "Call in now and I'll put you on hold, then play surprised when you are caller 12".

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I remember seeing a TV story about a guy who played radio competitions full time (he didn't have another job). This was in the 80s/90s in a US market with a lot of competition between a few stations that were all offering prizes.

He had a several radios and 2-3 phones and just madly speed-dialed into the station when each round was announced. He even had to disguise his voice because he won so often that the stations tried to avoid him winning.

I can't find the story but here is somebody similar:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2809341/Woman-addi...

I'm pretty surprised by how often I win those things. If I'm driving and a contest of any sort comes up, I'll call the number immediately and repeatedly for a few minutes, just hanging up and pressing redial. Anecdotally, I seem to win whatever prize in about 1% of those that I dial in for.

I've found that I sometimes don't even receive the prize, and occasionally don't even know what the prize or radio station are when I'm calling in as it's reflexive at this point.

Please don't do this unless you have a hands-free system!

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