Man wins island resort in $49 raffle

You read correctly. They held a raffle, the fundraiser of choices at school carnivals, for an entire island resort.

The island, which lies west of Hawaii, has a 16 room hotel, a four bedroom manager residence (where Joshua will be staying), and two self-contained one bedroom apartments – eek!

Prior to the winning ticket getting drawn, Mr Beitz said he was hoping the victor would be “someone who likes warm weather, likes meeting new people from around the world, is adventurous”.

Not that the Beitz family didn’t make out too shabby either, with the raffle netting the family $4 million AUD from the raffle.

Their message for the new owner?

The Breitz family, owners and residents of the Nautilus resort on Kosrae Island in Micronesia, put their island up as a raffle prize.

“We always knew this would do well, but we could have never predicted the hundreds of emails addressed to mum and dad from people all over the world telling them how much their story has inspired them and how wonderful the idea is”.

“Now we are focusing on the next chapter of our lives and where we go from here”, he added, saying Sally was planning to write a book about life on Kosrae.

Beitz said he and his wife had no experience in the tourism or hospitality business when the built the resort and knew they were “taking a risk”, reported the Daily Mail.

And here’s a glimpse of what the island of Kosrae looks like (spoiler: completely stunning). In fact what if we told you that you might be able to get that island with just the change in your pocket?

The previous owners, Australian couple Doug and Sally Beitz, made a decision to sell their tropical paradise but didn’t want to hold a “really boring” auction.

“We’d like to think we will be back at regular intervals”.

Joshua is now the sole owner of Kosrae Nautilus, which is entirely debt free and even comes with US$10,000 in the business bank account.

However, if Joshua is not prepared to run the resort himself, the website suggests he employ someone to manage it on his behalf.

Beitz told AFP that the resort sold “tens of thousands” of raffle tickets from around the globe.