Vote Leave’s £50m Euro 2016 competition courts controversy as rivals dub it a 'con'
The official ‘Vote Leave’ campaign has launched a competition giving entrants the chance to win £50m if they can predict the Euro 2016 results. The promotion has, however, courted some controversy with an opposing group labeling the promotion a "con".
The free-to-enter contest promises a £50m prize to followers if they are able to correctly predict the result of all 51 games in the Euro 2016 championships, which kick off in two weeks.
Vote Leave has taken out an insurance policy to fund the contest, and if no one is able to guess the final outcome of each of the matches then it has set aside a £50,000 prize for the "last man standing" who guts the most consecutive games correct.
This is your chance to win £50million - the amount of £ we send to the EU every single day: https://t.co/WE28xN4FPM pic.twitter.com/WJlJuOECPZ
— Vote Leave (@vote_leave) May 27, 2016
According to Vote Leave, the £50m figure has been chosen to represent the amount of money Britain sends to Europe each day. The claim that Brits provide £350m each week to the EU has been disputed by Vote Leave critics – including the UK Statistics Authority who dubbed the number "misleading".
The competition’s landing page prompts users to login to enter, allowing them to sign up via Facebook or to enter their own information manually. Terms and conditions state that any personal information given “may be used by Vote Leave in accordance with their privacy policy,” meaning it could be used to send out further promotional campaign information.
A Vote leave source told the Guardian this data could be “massively helpful” in helping identify potential supporters since ‘Vote Leave’, while supported by individuals like Boris Johnson, is not backed up by any of the mainstream political parties and needs to source its own information for its marketing campaign. Will Straw, executive director of Britain Stronger In Europe, told the Independent: “This competition is a con. The odds of winning this competition are 8 billion to one. The same length of odds as Vote Leave coming up with a coherent vision for what life would look like outside the EU."
Some social media users have also taken to Twitter to express concerns that the political group is gathering data via the means of a competition.
@vote_leave For a miniscule chance of winning, I shall not be helping you with the data gathering that this is about. — Jerome Shannon (@JeromeShannon68) May 27, 2016
Betting shop Ladbrokes pointed out that the odds of winning the contest were extremely slim.
.@vote_leave We have crunched the numbers. The odds of winning this are at least a trillion to one, Best of luck!
— Ladbrokes Politics (@LadPolitics) May 27, 2016
The Drum has reached out to Vote Leave for further comment on the promotion.