Unique Online Penny Auction to Bid on Cash

Last week I read a post from Jonathan Volk about penny auctions and particularly about a site called BidonCash.com. The penny auction concept for cash caught my attention because of the simplicity behind it. Everyone understands the value of what they are bidding on and the prize goes to highest bidder when time runs out. Bid pennies to win $50, $100 even $1,000. Seems like easy money right? Is it really that simple?

Well, not really. The actual auction process is more complicated than it appears. But I’ll get into this in more detail later. First let’s look at how it works. When you first visit the site you see a list active and upcoming auctions. There’s usually a couple active auctions that are close to countdown at any given time, although I noticed a change in just the last 24 hours. They seem to have stopped running actions 24/7. It appears many of the early bird auctions weren’t getting enough bidders and the prizes were going for way less than their value. Just take a peek at the image below:

Yesterday morning at 1:53am there was only one bidder for the $50 prize, so the opening bid won the prize. In the next 3 auctions, there were 4 bidders in each auction, but the total bid value never exceeded 1/2 of the value of the prize. The winners here really got a great deal. It’s great for the winners, but bad for the site owners. I’m guessing they’re going to stop the early morning actions till they get more registered users and site activity.

What’s important to note when seeing auctions being won for just a few cents it indicates no use of bidding bots. Bidding bots are automatic software interfering in the bidding process. They tend to bid when value of the auction is low in an effort to drive up prices.

So now let’s take a look at a live action.

In the example above, you’ll see the prize is $100 and the current bid is $0.54. It’s important to keep in mind that since each bid cost $1.00, so that $0.54 is actually $54. But even if an auction exceeds the value of the prize, it doesn’t mean it’s not a bargain. For example, say the current bid for the above auction was $1.45. That means $145 worth of bids have been placed to try and win that $100 price. But if you haven’t placed a bid yet, that $100 is still all profit to you. Downside is, it’s also true for everyone else who hasn’t bid. Important to note, I’ll come to this later.

My Experience

I signed up and purchased some bids to check it out. First off, I must say that I suck at gambling. I basically gamble the nickel slots in hopes the cocktail waitress will spot me before I blow my $2 nickel roll. But this seemed more promising, so I gave it a try.

I log on and see two auctions ending soon, both for $50. One of the auctions has a bid of $0.09 closing in 3 minutes and the other $0.24. So I quickly check out the closed auctions to see what ‘typical’ auctions for this prize amount have won for. Nice thing is you can see the full bidding history on closed auctions so you can see exactly who was bidding and how often. Winning bids have ranged anywhere from $.01 to just over $1.00. So I watch as the first auction winds down, 5, 4, 3, 2.. I place my bid. I’m now the highest bidder at $0.10. Shortly thereafter another bid for $0.11. Given that the bid came in just seconds after mine, I figured I’d wait a bit to see who else would bid and get a feel for it. The timer runs down, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 … auction closed. What?! I just got outbid by $0.01 and lost the auction.

Now I move onto the next $50 auction closing soon. There are more people bidding on this auction and each time someone makes a new bid, it resets the timer. I figure I’d let these people keep bidding and bumping the timer while I research the closed auctions a little closer. The highest bid I could find on a $50 auction was $1.17. Most ended between $0.30 and $0.60. My strategy is to let everyone bid up the auction, then I’d jump in and start once they bid themselves out.

The bids near $0.50, then $0.60, then $0.70. It’s down to two bidders, so I figure I’d join in now and ruin their day. I start at $0.71 and am quickly outbid. I wait, bid again, and once again quickly outbid. I stick with my strategy thinking these guys are going to fold anytime now. Well they didn’t. The bids blast past the $1.17 ceiling I researched and now I’m down to my last bid. I wait. Bidding reaches $1.28 and I strike again. I’m once again quickly outbid and fresh out of bids. But now new bidders have entered the auction late (like I was trying to do) and getting into their own bidding war. The auction finally ended at $1.82. The highest I ever seen for a $50 prize.

So if you didn’t believe me before, you can now see why I hang around the nickel slots. All that aside, here are my suggestions for finding success bidding on cash:

• Try to manually determine when there are less bidders online. Less bidders often means less competition.
• Watch out for the people who tend to never give up. Use the closed auction bid history to research current bidders and bid when they are not.

If you use the following bonus code when you register, TPAULINO5BIDS, you’ll get 5 free bids. And if you want extra bids, after you sign up, you can refer a friend and receive 10 free bids for every friend you refer.

Just remember, bidding on cash is gambling and not a formula to make money. I prefer to think of it like Vegas. I just wish they’d figure out a way to bring me free drinks when I’m bidding. Good luck!

Tagged as: bid on cash, gambling