People are using private Facebook pages for their main income source — bringing in thousands a month and spending nothing.
Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash
This is a whole new world for me, Facebook raffle pages. Maybe I’m naïve, however I had no idea people can make thousands of dollars a month off of a raffle page on Facebook, or as they like to call them — a waffle page. Facebook doesn’t support raffle pages so people refer to them as “waffle pages” to avoid getting their page shut down by Facebook.
These pages are against Facebook’s terms and conditions as far as raffles or giveaways go, but people have been doing these raffles for years and getting away with it. According to Facebook the only pages that should hold a raffle is a non-profit.
How it works?
Typically, you get invited to one of these private pages by someone you know which automatically builds the trust in the page and process. I personally was added to a farm raffle page, and I have participated in bidding. I do have to admit at first I was very concerned I wouldn’t get the products I won, and was surprised when they started showing up.
I actually ended up winning a $1,500 incubator and hatching set from GQF for only $60 in tickets!
There have been other wins for me as well, some big and some small.
If you simply search the term “waffle” on Facebook under the groups section, you will see hundreds of raffle pages.
Starting a raffle page isn’t as easy as you would think. You have to build the trust that you’re not a scam, this can take months of work and finding the right people to join your group.
Rules on these pages are generally the same
- Only admins and moderators can post items for a raffle, if a moderator posts they have to pay a fee to an admin each time. Admins can bring in an additional $200-$500 a month just from these fees, they split them at the end of the month between the admins.
- You bid on however many spots are open on a raffle and pay when all the spots have been bid on. Typically, this is done on PayPal, Venmo or CashApp.
- 1 winner is picked with a random number generator on google— it does seem to be 100% random.
Sounds simple right? It is. The part that most people don’t realize is, the admins can make hundreds on one raffle by simply raffling it for more than it’s worth. People bidding feel like it’s a win because they bid $5 for something that cost $60, so when they win it feels good. They just got one hell of a deal!
Check out this example I took from a raffle page
This group is raffling off a Nintendo Switch bundle with Mario Cart. This retails at Walmart for $444.
They’re raffling 45 spots — $15 for each spot. They will be paid $675 for the product, which means they’re profiting $230.
Photo provided by Author
Is it a scam?
I don’t think it’s a scam, more of a way for people to make money off of other people. The admins of these pages do spend hours managing their groups and creating raffles. It’s just the question of if they should get paid for their work or not. I haven’t found a page yet that doesn’t benefit an admin.
To participate in these groups is actually exciting, it feels like gambling. I talked to a couple of admins of these pages one anonymously said “there has been a huge uptick in the money people are willing to spend on these raffles since Covid-19 started and more people are at home”.
Tax issues
While to me this is all fun and games, what about taxes and that unclaimed income these admins get? I haven’t been able to confirm, but I would guess the admins do one of two things:
- Register as a small business and claiming the earned income
- Doesn’t report the income which is why they use apps like Venmo and CashApp
I don’t see the IRS going after someone that is making a few thousand dollars on Facebook raffles without much proof, but you never know.
I bet a few of you search waffle and join these groups after reading this article.