Finally watched one of these. Forced participation would make for quite an effective punishment. I could only take about 30 minutes of it live, but have checked back in periodically for the last NINE hours. So far they've gotten $5400 worth of bids on an uninspiring two night package worth maybe $700 fair market. Honestly, it's a bit disturbing to come back to the auction each time and see many of the same names bidding over and over and over again. Likely a number have already spent as much as they could have booked the room for straight out, and I shudder to think of the time value/stress of siting in front of the screen for eight straight hours with your finger on the mouse watching hundreds of dollars flitter away. It's clearly a smart and effective business model. I wouldn't hold out any hope of them shortening the auction time or making for a less painful process. The way it's constructed is necessary to get the gamblers participating to throw so many dollars at it. Frankly I wonder what percentage of revenue is coming from compulsive gamblers and what percentage of used bids aren't redemed for other bookings. Talk about scary, this auction last month http://www.offandaway.com/hotel/Canc...uctionId=92023 went till 5am and the "winner" spent 2854 bids.