Bernard's motives are not entirely altruistic. Hoping to turn the contest into a business, he and a partner created the Web site where the drawing is posted, howtowinmyhouse.com, in July, with the idea that it could become a clearinghouse for real estate giveaway contests. (A site focused on raffles around the country, usahomeraffle.com, was also started in July, by two Maryland entrepreneurs.) Since Bernard's own contest was announced by a local newspaper that month, he said, "I've been working the local market, doing radio and newspaper interviews."

Spreading the word is crucial to the success of such contests, according to those who have held them, as is promoting them beyond the local area. (Almost everyone who raffles a home sets up a Web site that accepts online orders.) But desperate homeowners should not count on being able to match the publicity given to Crawford and Kelly's raffle: After a local newspaper wrote an article about it, it was mentioned on CNN on Super Bowl Sunday.

"We sold 1,500 tickets that day," said Anderson of the San Mar Children's Home, who has since fielded so many requests for information that he will hold a how-to workshop in Baltimore in November. The success of that raffle seems to have inspired many sellers, particularly in Maryland. Still, he said, "if you study this you'll find that the majority of time it's not successful."

Walters said he has sold around 2,000 tickets in the raffle for his Edgewater, Md., house, including several to Asian buyers after a South Korean newspaper picked up the story. He had planned to hold the raffle this Saturday, but will almost certainly postpone it, given how far he is from meeting his minimum goal, selling 31,500 tickets.

Bernard's coloring contest has drawn just 34 paid entries so far, two months into a submissions period that ends on Dec. 17 or whenever he receives the planned maximum number of entries, 5,900. (Attracting participants to a skills-based contest rather than a raffle can be more difficult because participants are required to do more than simply buy a ticket.)

Even for the contest winners, there can be serious complications, as Dennis Weaver, a county clerk who took a $100 chance and won Crawford and Kelly's farmhouse, discovered. Weaver had to take out a mortgage to pay the $135,000 in taxes on the prize and has since decided to sell the farmhouse, returning it to the languishing real estate market. He held an auction, but there were no bids. Then he listed it with the real estate agent who helped orchestrate the raffle, asking, he said, in the high $200,000 range. One deal fell through, and now he is in contract with another buyer.

If the farmhouse doesn't sell this time, maybe its new owner can hold a raffle.