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If you entered a sweepstakes competition in those years, it was likely run by C.B.S. He was part of a staggering scam that involved some of the biggest brands of the eighties: Ford, Holiday Inn, Nabisco, Royal Desserts. Parker held up the key and tried not to overdo his excitement.

A photographer from the Trump Today newspaper popped a flashbulb. The attendant reappeared wearing a tuxedo. He was ushered into a promotional booth, and, over the next twenty-four hours, Trump’s P.R. Then he did a double take-Parker had won. The attendant applied the final sticker, scratched off the gold coating, and offered his commiserations. “Look, why don’t you play?” the attendant said. He greeted the parking attendant and handed over his ticket. Parker was a hypnotist and a magician, and he spoke with a stutter. The Allanté cost fifty-five thousand dollars, about as much as a family home in Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, where James Parker, the man on crutches, lived. If visitors collected enough validation stickers, in the right combination, they could win prizes, including Walkmans, cash, an “Eternity of Vacations,” or even a Cadillac. Seidman suggested printing half a million promotional parking tickets. To entice larger crowds to his flagship casino, he had built a thirty-million-dollar parking garage. Brands hoping to capitalize on America’s obsession would pay C.B.S. had a unique business proposition: it would come up with the promotion, print the entry forms, and even deliver the prizes. Even Harvard University’s alumni magazine was offering ten thousand dollars in Sony electronics. The industry had grown to an estimated value of a billion dollars, and every company, from Toys R Us to Wonder Bread, seemed to be running giveaways and promotions. Seidman Marketing Group-in the hope that the television station would sue him, giving him free publicity.īy the late eighties, America was in the grip of a sweepstakes mania. The contest had been designed by Charles (Chuck) Seidman, a gregarious, boundlessly enthusiastic pitchman who called his business C.B.S.-short for C. On the covered driveway, bathed in neon light, sat a Cadillac Allanté convertible-the grand prize in Trump’s 1987 Drive-In Dreamstakes. A man with a tight Afro and a broken ankle hobbled on crutches toward the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino.

Jimmy buffett margaritaville license plates