Coffee in Casablanca

I love the idea of winning anything, so for 23 days straight I made the rounds at SL23B, clicking all five Golden Ticket kiosks every single day in hopes of being one of the 23 people selected for a chance to win L$1,000,000. In the end, I wasn’t chosen, but I still went to the live finale, and I’m really glad I did.

The final drawing turned out to be surprisingly emotional. One by one, more than a dozen contestants clicked their mystery boxes, and none of them contained the million. Then, with only seven or eight boxes left, one resident picked box #19, one of the smallest boxes, and won. I had a feeling the prize would be hiding in one of the tiny boxes because that’s always how these random prize games seem to work. You always pick the little box, even in a virtual world.

What surprised me most was that many of the finalists got on voice before making their choice. I wasn’t expecting that at all, and several of their short speeches were genuinely heartfelt. I even teared up a little when Spike Bloodrose gave a shout-out to his best friend. It was a really sweet moment.

Linden Lab said they received more than 180,000 entries, which made me wonder how they were counting them. I personally submitted 115 entries by clicking all five kiosks every day for 23 days (23 × 5 = 115). If every kiosk click counted as a separate entry, that works out to roughly 1,565 unique participants, assuming everyone entered every day.

As for the event itself, I found the daily clicking pretty tedious. It wasn’t much of a game, and it certainly didn’t encourage me to explore the exhibits. Even though kiosk #5 kept moving every few days, I still never stopped to look around. Next year, I’d rather see a simple one-time entry where everyone has the same odds instead of asking people to repeat the same routine every day.

If you missed it, you can still watch the live finale on YouTube.