Everyone and their granny, it seems, knows someone who's won something on Ooosch.
A brand spanking new Audi, a sun holiday, ten grand in cash, a Dyson hair kit bundle – there are even hampers of tan for the price of loose change up for grabs.
Ooosch mania is sweeping the nation and, largely due to its proliferation on social media, the prize-pot giveaway app is fast becoming a household name.
It was founded in 2019 by Cavan go-getter Michael Hatton, a thirtysomething upstart on the digital block whose business model is very much plugged into the power of social media.
An atypical corporate executive, Hatton has an attitude to business very much in line with the social media hipster generation.
Ooosch founder Michael Hatton (right) gifting a cheque to Cavan Town FC
On the Ooosch Instagram, the handsome budding betting executive is all casual slogan hoodies and slouchy joggers, while on LinkedIn he dons a trendy waistcoat and suit, a demonstration that he knows how to play the social network game to perfection.
But what Mr Hatton lacks in boardroom chops, he more than makes up for in tapping into the 'I see, I want, I shop' TikTok zeitgeist.
By his own account, Ooosch has hit the jackpot, as he has recently claimed his self-founded firm has produced more than 100,000 winners, handed out over €26million in prizes and raised more than €250,000 for charity.
There seems little reason to doubt him. Hardly a day goes by without Ooosch parading yet another lucky winner across its social media pages.
Ooosch's allure leans heavily on beguiling prospective punters with oversized, wibbly-wobbly cardboard cheques worth six figures, souped-up 4x4s and sun-drenched holidays to exotic locations.
Even the smaller prizes, Dyson hair dryers and designer sunglasses, are exactly what the social media generation desires.
Unlike the humdrum, traditional lucky-number National Lottery, Ooosch offers punters a dizzying number of ways to win big. Cash draws run almost every day, with an €80,000 instant spin costing just 39c a go.
Top-of-the-range motors like a Volkswagen Touareg and five-star getaways to Thailand can be had for 99c a ticket, while smaller prizes range from coffee machines and PS5 bundles to Premier League games with hospitality.
With a raft of instant spin-the-wheel and scratch games, including a €1.2million Halloween Mystery Instant Win, the app appears very cleverly created to keep players hooked and coming back for more.
Attuned to the fact that social media holds the key to Ooosch's continued success, Mr Hatton has enlisted some big-name influencers to spread the word.
The recently retired boxing superstar Katie Taylor is just one who has promoted the prize draws to her legions of followers.
Katie Taylor has signed up as a brand ambassador to promote Ooosch
A host of other influencers have also been drafted in to boost Ooosch's social media reach, including Michelle Regazzoli-Stone, better known as Mrs Makeup.
Crucially, that reach appears to be heavily focused on young women, a demographic not typically considered big gamblers but one that is terminally online and easily influenced.
Mr Hatton's own tale could be considered a modern-day rag-trade-to-riches story.
Born and bred in Co Cavan, he studied at IT Blanchardstown, pulling pints in a Dublin bar and nightclub during his first year, before cutting his teeth in the rag trade on the shop floor at Mr Price and then Sports Direct in Co Leitrim between 2014 and 2017.
In his final year of college, he led a team of four building Pledge It Today, a charity crowdfunding site, and joined Enterprise Ireland's New Frontiers start-up programme in 2017.
By 2018, he was flogging trainers as a technical sales rep for sportswear giant Asics, a day job he held on to until November 2021, almost three years after launching Ooosch.
Within months of launch, the Butlersbridge start-up scooped Best Start-Up Business at the Cavan finals of Ireland's Best Young Entrepreneur awards, bagging a €15,000 investment fund. Now Mr Hatton sells the dream of riches.
But the most recent accounts for Ooosch Giveaways Limited, which he registered with Companies House in the UK, suggest Ooosch may be biting off more than it can financially chew.
By March 2025, the company was almost €440,000 in the red, owing more than it was worth.
That's a twelvefold dip in a single year. While the firm was sitting on €1.68million in the bank, it also owed a whopping €2.1million, including more than €1.4million to suppliers and other trade creditors.
Additionally, a further €703,000 is owed to another company controlled by Mr Hatton. A year earlier, the cash was flowing the other way, with a related firm owing Ooosch €803,000.
Thomas Fitzpatrick celebrating his €1 million win on an Ooosch giveaway
But if Ooosch Giveaways Limited is on a losing streak, a separate corporate entity, OG Media & Management Limited, appears to be sitting on a pot of gold.
Accounts for OG Media & Management Limited show profits have almost trebled, jumping from €550,686 to a cool €1.55million, in a 12-month period.
OG Media has also squirrelled away €2.1million in retained earnings and has €678,642 in cash.
Seemingly buoyed by its initial success, Ooosch appears to be laying the groundwork to branch out its prize-giving empire.
In February 2024, Hatton Investments Limited was set up in Ireland as a holding company, with Mr Hatton and a Ms Niamh Galligan as directors.
In 2024, a fourth company, OG Real Estate Limited, joined the stable. By March 2025 it held €55,000 of stock, suggesting a move into bricks and mortar.
If so, Mr Hatton would be following a well-trodden path into the lucrative property raffle sphere.
Across the water, house giveaways have exploded, led by US firm Omaze.
In just a few short years, Omaze claims to have handed over the keys to no fewer than 44 luxury homes worth an average of €3.4million each to punters paying as little as €12 for 15 entries.
Its sales rocketed from €150million to €232million in 2024 alone, yet the firm doesn't publish the odds of winning, which independent estimates put at around one in two million per entry.
Closer to home, GAA clubs have got in on the act with draws such as Win A Home in Kildare, while Leitrim healthcare worker Imelda Collins raked in more than €1.2million last year raffling her cottage near Manorhamilton at €5 a go.
The lucky winner was Kathleen Spangler, a 29-year-old US Marine Corps officer.
With the promise of instant riches, but perhaps more dangerously, instant play at the click of a phone, are people spinning the wheel to financial misfortune? For a worrying minority, the data suggests so.
Gambling harm is already a growing worry here at home. Such is the harm around gambling addiction that recent years have seen stringent rules around advertising introduced.
An Economic and Social Research Institute study found gambling harm in Ireland is ten times higher than anyone thought, while Stormont health committee chair Philip McGuigan, a former gambling addict, warns prize draws 'look and feel very similar to gambling'.
In the Wild West of social media, firms like Ooosch appear to be able to circumnavigate rules and regulations with relative ease.
With Mr Hatton at the helm, Ooosch is riding a tidal wave that has swept Britain, where prize draws are now a €1.5billion-a-year industry operating outside gambling law.
There, a government study found one in eight players shows signs of problem gambling, four times the rate of the general public, with spin-the-wheel instant wins flagged as especially risky.
With giveaway games like Ooosch tantalising people with dazzling prizes online, Ooosch, it seems, is here to stay and play.
Mr Hatton was approached for comment.
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