The Newegg Shuffle lottery system was recently beaten by an 11-year-old PC gamer that found a loophole allowing him to order an RTX 3090 without having to wait. The boy found a seemingly obvious oversight in Newegg's ordering process that made it possible to simply purchase the highly sought-after GPU just by using the Newegg mobile app in a specific way.
The global chip shortage is affecting everything from used car prices to gaming PC builds, and it's showing little sign that it will end any time soon. Fueled by the pandemic and made worse by scalpers, the huge shortage of PC graphics cards is now the biggest reason to wait to build the gaming PC of your dreams. Those that remain determined to score a GPU are forced to pay ridiculous prices on the scalper's market or cross their fingers and hope that they are chosen by one of the lottery systems that sites like Newegg use to beat bot buyers.
11-year-old Ricardo Santana Jr stumbled across a hilarious hole in Newegg's lottery system and managed to order and receive a GeForce RTX 3090 without waiting to be chosen. As first reported by PCMag, the loophole is made possible by the Newegg mobile app and, more specifically, the app's built-in PC builder tool. The feature makes it easy to gather all the parts you'll need for your rig and add them to your cart all at once. As young Santana found out, the tool also bypasses the restrictions Newegg put in place to prevent shoppers from grabbing GPUs at will.
Luck Of The Draw
Rather than requiring that you wait for the Newegg Shuffle lottery to land on you, the PC builder tool lets you drop graphics cards right into your shopping cart. In fact, the loophole even allowed for GPUs displayed as "out of stock" to be ordered, presumably resulting in the parts shipping whenever the product listings went live again. The boy used his discovery to purchase a single 3090 for himself, and while the boy's father, Ricardo Santana Sr told PCMag that he himself was tempted to order more, he decided against it. "I thought about purchasing more but don't want to abuse it and would like to give other people the opportunity," the elder Santana told the outlet.
Newegg has reportedly already patched up the hole, so it's unlikely that you'll have any luck scoring a GPU in a similar fashion. Newegg released a statement saying that "only a small number" of GPUs were obtained via the PC builder tool, and the company canceled all pending orders that were placed that way before they were shipped. Ultimately, a lottery system is the best way to make sure people at least have a (small) chance at scoring computer parts that they want, and if it keeps scalpers from buying and reselling them, it's good that Newegg patched the hole.
Source: PCMag