Whoops! Seattle Car Dealership Loses Bet With Customers — Must Pay $420,000

Jet Chevrolet in Federal Way (between Seattle and Tacoma) set up a four-day promotion where anyone could enter to win a piece of $420,000. In honor of the 12th Man, there was going to be 12 winners ($35,000 each) IF, AND ONLY IF, Seattle achieved a blowout. It was supposed to be for the 49ers game, but Jet Chevrolet was late finalizing the contest, so it ended up falling on the game with the New York Giants, who suck.

It was designed to sell cars (buy a car, get 100 entries), and apparently they did sell about 20, but most are calling it a fiasco. Jet Chevrolet took out an insurance policy, but it's likely they're still going to lose big on this one.

It's awesome members of the 12th Man won big, but as someone who does a lot of promotions, you've got to really think this stuff out. If you're giving away money, you must do a lot of homework on these. That's a lot of profit lost. And I'm glad they took out an insurance policy. Normally when you do a contest like this the odds are supposed to be astronomical. The insurance company should have crunched those numbers for them.