re: Anyone ever won anything from a raffle ticket?

I won a few hundred dollars from a school raffle once. IIRC, the school had to set it up with some kind of license from the state to make it legit.

And back when my husband and I were first dating, my cousin was selling tickets for a raffle on a Browning 12 gauge shotgun. My mom knew my husband (boyfriend at the time) hunted, so she bought two $1 raffle tickets--she put my brother's name on one and hubby's name on the other. Husband's ticket won, so my mom gave him the gun. My brother was like, "Really Mom? You barely know him!" (He's long since gotten over it--brother & husband are now good friends.)

She made a good choice, because my husband will keep that gun until he passes it to our son, whereas my brother probably would've sold it a long time ago.