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With credit tighter than ever, it's tempting to try to fill that cash hole with a competition win - many promise big prizes. But your chances of winning anything better than a piece of cheap jewellery could be so low they are almost invisible.
Competitions can be a con - even the BBC has misled contestants. Just before Christmas it was fined £95,000 by broadcast regulator Ofcom for "unfair conduct" after inviting listeners to enter competitions, knowing the audience stood no chance of winning because the programmes - and the names of the winners - were pre-recorded.
Many competitions are set up to rake in money for promoters. Some are designed so that the chance of anyone winning a worthwhile prize are almost non-existent. And just in case someone beats the huge odds, it is even possible for organisers to insure against anyone winning using a little-known policy called "prize indemnity insurance".
With scratchcards, often everyone is a "winner". But to find out what you have won, you have to call a £1.50-a-minute phone line where you will end up spending up to £9.99 listening to a long list of numbers until it comes to yours. Then you find out you have "won" a low-grade prize that could cost up to £10 in postage if you want it.
Here's how to protect yourself:
• Know how many entries are allowed if there is a limited pool of prizes. The more entries, the lower your chances. The National Lottery and premium bonds increase prizes if entries go up, but many others don't.
• Avoid long-running competitions. If you are looking at a year or more before the competition closes, your chances of a meaningful prize are minimal. Organisers can even disappear during this period with the money.
• Beware of misleading prizes. The promised expensive car could be a second-hand vehicle on its last legs.
• Watch out for so-called "free competitions". Often you will have to pay a fee to redeem a prize and some contests are run to create a mailing list.
Enter and you could be bombarded with junk mail, spam emails and unwanted text messages. It is easy to miss the box you must tick to avoid this.
• Don't get mesmerised by a big prize. Look at the small print to see what you will probably win. Some draws decide on winning numbers before anyone has entered - there may be no big winner if no one bothers to claim.
"It's surprising how little people know about these competitions," says Ivan Imhoff, from Spotit.co.uk, a new competition website which promises to offer entrants a fair deal. "You need to know your chances of winning - it could be less than one in a million - or that up to 30 companies could be buying your personal details for as little as £1 each. Many competitions are also networked, which means newspapers, websites, mailshots and magazines pool all their entries together, leading to millions of entries for a single competition," he warns.
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