I Solved the 100k Puzzle

I finished the 100k QR code puzzle on Feb 21st, 2021. The completed puzzle 🧩 is still sitting on my coffee table. It serves as a reminder of how hard it was and how good it felt to finish it. It's also a cause of great disappointment because I'm not $100,000 richer. In fact, I only won .25 cents.

For those of you that don't know the story behind the 100k puzzle, it was a limited run of jigsaw puzzle boxes sold by YouTuber David Dobrik. The puzzle cost me $30 and upon completion, I had to take a picture of the final image which prompted my phone to scan the QR code that then took me to a website that asked me to input my unique verification code (comes with the puzzle) which in turn revealed how much money I had won. It was all very exciting until I found out I was just another sucker that won twenty five cents.

Here is a breakdown of the odds of winning ... A total of 100,151 puzzles were available for purchase out of which 95,500 puzzles will return $0.25 to purchasers; 1,500 units will pay $0.50; another 1,500 will pay $1 each; 1,000 will pay $10; 450 will pay $50; 50 will pay $100; 50 will pay $250; 50 will pay $500; 50 will pay $1,000; and only one will pay $100,000. Participants have until the end of March to complete the puzzle and claim their prize.

So knowing this information, the odds of winning more than $1 are 98,500 to 1 if you purchase just one puzzle. Yet, somehow my hopes of winning that prize money were strong and took over my logic that the odds were stacked against me.

If you google 100k puzzle, a handful of articles have emerged and the sentiment is that the puzzle is a scam and David Dobrik is promoting gambling to children and disguising it as a giveaway.

I don't agree with the word scam since I did receive a puzzle in exchange for my money. But I will say that for all my extreme enthusiasm and hard work I put into solving the puzzle, I feel like I deserve to be rewarded with more than .25 cents. And I'm sure I'm not the only one that feels that way.

David Dobrik made over 3 million dollars in sales from the puzzle. If 95,500 people were to claim their .25 cents prize he would have to pay out $23,875. But going through the trouble and time of claiming a quarter is just not worth it. I'm highly skeptical that more than 10% of winners will claim their quarter. David will have a large chunk of change leftover from unclaimed quarters.

I also doubt that all 100,151 puzzles will be finished and redeemed by March 31st. A lot of prize money will be left unclaimed. In my opinion, after the 31st the leftover money should be redistributed between everyone that finished the puzzle.

If the point of this puzzle was to have fun and for everyone that participates to win, then why not share the wealth?

Completing the puzzle was a challenge that I certainly enjoyed, but I won't be spending my money again on David's next puzzle endeavor just to get my hopes crushed for a second time.

So I challenge @daviddobrik to surprise and reward all of us that participated and finished the puzzle.

David, if you did this for the community as a way to give people hope and something to look forward to then why not share a little more of the earnings? Make the community that follows you and supports you feel appreciated and heard.

After all, it's not about the money but about feeling like we all gained something from this experience together.