It seems more like I am buying an expensive lottery ticket and the cutoff time is not a real cutoff time at all.

perhaps buy 100000 lottery tickets if you're feeling lucky.....if the question revolves around whether better flipping opportunities exist???

I bet the expected ROI from buying 1000 lottery tickets is higher than the expected ROI of a $1000 direct mail campaign. 

In some cases, the demand is so high that the buyers would have to go through a lottery.

The only way to "get rich quick" is to win the lottery, lol.

That raises a red flag , unless he has a relative or won the lottery , I'd pass and hire a realtor to assist me. 

They actually made some changes to the bid opening procedure a few months back, but I still bid on quite a few properties there and have successfully won some.Basically there are a number of categories - lottery, exclusive, and open (there is also extended and one more, but these are all open to any bidder).

Like a dozen homemade chocolate cookies just call or get a free or low cost lottery ticket (proceeds to a church donation),  Meanwhile you get is a chance to meet them, ask for biz or referral and go from there.  

We here about people winning lotteries.

The build-up and hope of landing a coveted spot in one of the city’s elite magnet schools has been compared to applying to an Ivy League university -- or to playing the lottery.