Brian Wilshaw and his wife Wendy are raffling off their 11.5 acre Oldborough Retreat. Forty-six thousand tickets will be sold at twenty-five pounds each. With odds like that it beats out the actual Lottery.

The property includes a three bedroom main house and four two bedroom lodges with nine and a half acres of woodlands, a stocked lake and other amenities. The property functioned as a vacation resort until the Wilshaws decided it was time to retire and sell the property to another.

The property is valued at around a million pounds, but with a softening market its hard to get offers. The amount raised by the sale of the tickets will be enough for the value of the house, taxes and other fees associated with the raffle. To make the contest one of skill a question is asked before you can pay the entry fee. The deed will be handed over to the winner at the close of the contest.

A gambling law expert has questioned the validity of the Wilshaw’s raffle based on current law. Because lotteries are not allowed to be operated for personal gain and some subsections do not allow for a question to be so simple that few will fail to answer it correctly. An attorney representing the Wilshaws has said he does believe it fulfills the skill portion which is stated in another subsection as allowing questions which can easily be answered by basic research.

If you’d like to take a gamble on the raffle going through and a 1/46,000 odds of winning a nice vacation resort of your own you can go to www.winadevonpropertywithfishing.co.uk and answer “What is the cost of an adult full season coarse fishing license for 2008/2009?’ and pay your entry fee. The contest ends in December although it can be extended by up to eight weeks if they are close to the required number to fulfill the guidelines.