Ryan O., a 40-year-old salesman living in Kansas City, has won a lot of raffles in his life.
Once, he played 18 holes with professional golfer Tom Watson, thanks to a raffle victory. “My family always gives me a hard time because they think I have a lot of luck,” he says.
Now he can add “Tesla winner” to his list of good fortune — but he almost didn’t believe it.
On Monday, The Hustle’s president emailed him, inviting him to participate in a subscriber interview. In reality, the email was a ruse. But Ryan thought it was a mass email and deleted it.
The next day, he got another message, and he deleted that, too.
After receiving a 3rd email, he gave in. “I said, I’m swamped this week, I can jump on with you next week if you have time.” The reply: It’ll just take 5 minutes.
When we told Ryan over a Zoom call yesterday that he won, he was shocked. Despite reading The Hustle regularly, he hadn’t realized we were running a giveaway.
“As I was talking, I just Googled ‘The Hustle raffle’ to make sure that it was real,” he says.
But the news is certainly welcome. Ryan’s current ride is a 2011 Honda with 227k miles on it.