Pub owner puts venue up for sale in $25-a-ticket raffle

FORGET the meat tray. This entire Australian pub is up for grabs in a raffle that could change someone’s fortunes dramatically. We’ll drink to that.

This German beer garden in Newcastle could be yours for the price of a raffle ticket.

FORGET the meat tray.

This entire pub is up for grabs in a raffle that could change someone’s fortunes dramatically.

Newcastle’s James Sneddon is selling the German beer garden he started three years ago, Das Hund Haus — but instead of listing it the usual way, he’s decided to roll the dice.

Wannabe publicans have the chance to win the business, plus $30,000 cash, for the price of a $25 raffle ticket. The winner will be selected in a random electronic draw.

“I’d like the person who wins to be someone who has a dream of owning a bar, but just hasn’t quite been able to realise it yet,” Mr Sneddon said.

He said he’d been inspired to take this approach by the story of a couple who raffled off their Pacific Island resort last year, which made a bloke from Wollongong called Joshua very rich.

“People have been messaging me saying ‘I’ve got 17 years’ hospitality experience and I want to have my own pub, but I just don’t know how I’m going to do it’,” he said.

James Sneddon, left, with bar manager Scott Murphy, is raffling off his pub.

The competition has so far drawn about 500 tickets, raising just a fraction of the $200,000 asking price that Mr Sneddon would have slapped on the bar in an ordinary sales process.

But while he’d love to sell 10,000, he believes he only needed to sell about 2000 tickets to break even — because raffle entrants will also get a two-for-one voucher that is expected to bring about $150 each through the door.

“It’s a win-win,” Mr Sneddon said, adding that his biggest challenge was convincing people the offer wasn’t too good to be true.

“There is a stigma attached to selling, people think you’re exiting because it’s not doing well,” he said.

But he said Das Hund Haus was “a profitable small bar operation” that turned over “about $600,000” a year.

He estimated the pub’s value at between $150,000 and $225,000, on a one to 1.5 times earnings basis.

You can win this bar for $25 in a raffle

It’s got a 50-seat beer garden, with eight beers on tap, a pork knuckle signature dish and $2 Schnitzels luring punters on Tuesday nights.

The former accountant is selling in order to bankroll his tech start-up, Stigma Health, an online STI testing service that launched in November last year.

“Patients talk to our doctors online and then we send them to a pathology clinic, which allows them to avoid waiting in line,” Mr Sneddon said.

“People don’t like going to the GP with sexual health problems and statistics show Australians don’t get STI tested often enough. If we all got tested once a year, we could wipe out these preventable diseases that can cause people a lot of problems if left untreated.”

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