Like most people, we fall into that rather sizable group who ‘never win anything at a raffle’. However, one person who certainly will have his membership to that group swifty revoked is an Australian bloke called Joshua, who this week was randomly picked to become the new owner of a tropical island resort in the Pacific Ocean.
How is this possible we can hear you thinking? Well, the Australian owners (Doug and Sally Beitz) of the Kosrae Nautilus Resort (located on the Micronesian island of Kosrae) decided that after nearly 20 years of ownership they had had enough of living in paradise and decided to sell their profitable, 16-room, dive and surfing resort via an online raffle, because selling it the normal way was “too boring”.
With tickets being sold for $49 (Dhs140), more than 50,000 people entered the competition and the raffle to pick the winner was conducted on a live-stream online.
Little information has been released about the winner, Joshua, himself (as the family want to protect his privacy until he gets his head around his new acquisition) aside from the fact that he bought a raffle ticket, and when the resort’s owners tried to contact him live on air to tell him the news he wasn’t at home.
Having moved to the island (population approx 6,000 people) in the mid-90s after seeing it on a TV advert, the Beitz family built and operated the Kosrae resort for nearly two decades before finally deciding that it was time to move back to Queensland to be closer to their grandkids.
The competition website says the resort, which is popular for diving and fishing, is debt-free and profitable, employs 16 full-time staff and has $10,000 (Dhs27,000) in the business bank account. The prize includes the manager’s four-bedroom residence, five rental cars, two 10-seater vans, a pick-up truck and the resort restaurant.