What I Have Learned Labelling Millions of Sneaker Raffle Entries

We might have set a Guinness World Record for the most hours spent analyzing sneaker raffles. Last month, we analyzed over 3 million sneaker entries, and throughout the years, we have encountered every trick known to man and bots. We have seen the different but overlapping tendencies of botters in regions across the world.

We wanted to document some of our favorite and obvious keys for identifying bots in raffle entries.

• No one lives in apartments in North Dakota: we say this jokingly, as there are apartments in North Dakota, but the number of fake apartments in random states and areas is a giveaway. These are easily identified as randomly generated accounts, so if you are going to bot, try finding realistic and real locations.
• People love using the numbers 69 and 420: though we see some hilarious email addresses, using these numbers is often an identifier for lazy botters. It stems slightly from some arrogance on knowing systems struggle to prevent bots, so yolo and let’s win with the most flagrant name.
• Airport Boulevard in Portland, Oregon, the ultimate red flag: everyone in retail knows this address, as it is infamous for reselling and exporting to Asia. It is essentially a fulfillment center, and no one lives here. If you see this address, know it is being botted or resold.‍
• The dot trick is not that sneaky: everyone thinks they are so clever by using multiple related entries like abc@gmail.com and ab.c@gmail.com to disguise themselves. It is an effective method to get mass entries but also an effective method to filter out.

We love the puzzle of discerning humans vs. bots and helping brands choose their best customers for raffles. However, we know this is hard for brands and stores since there is an overwhelming number of entries, thousands to hundreds of thousands per release.

Raffles are a critical pipeline for acquiring new and rewarding loyal customers. Yofi eliminates the guesswork and manual hours reviewing these entries by identifying and deprioritizing bots. We want to enable you to focus on growing your business while we help you better understand and prioritize your loyal customers.