Sue St.Clair and Matthew Didier's Paranormal Blog

Recently on our Facebook group the topic of cash prizes for spending the night at a haunted location came up. Our Facebook group member had heard that the story went something along the lines of "if you could stay the entire night in a reportedly haunted house you would win some cash prize," but just couldn't place where this location was or how much the cash being offered might be.

My first thought is that this sounds very much like the plot of the movie House On Haunted Hill with Vincent Price. In the original if you stayed the night you'd get $10,000 dollars and in the remake in 1999 if you managed to survive the night in the haunted house you would get a one million dollar prize.

Matthew added the following.........

The 1959 classic was best! Actually, one could also claim the 1964 classic "A Haunted House is Not a Home", where Uncle Giggles "passes" away and challenges "Fat Freddy" to spend the night in his old mansion in order to get his inheritance, also fits this story.

The "spend a night and get dough" is a plot-device/fictional construct and most probably pre-dates 1959. It probably stems from bets and dares to spend nights in cemeteries and whatnot (Georgian and Victorian gents were big on this sort of wager) not to mention that one COULD argue that Washington Irving's original "Legend of Sleepy Hollow" - which is actually a modified version of a Dutch/German tale which is much older - is also based on the same premise.

I've heard "tales" where the idea of surviving a night in some place would gain you cash and prestige coming from many castles and manor homes in Europe (none true, I'm afraid,) most notably Glamis (not true and the castle is still inhabited,) and "The Bloody Tower" at the Tower of London (which, if you consider "nasty history", the Beauchamp (pronounced oddly enough, "Beecham",) would be a better option... but, this too is not true and the tower is occupied 24x7 by the Yeoman Warders. Then there's 50 Berkley Square in London which got this reputation after it's famed "ghost story" became popular about the sailors leaping to their deaths (or a variation therein,) but this is utter bunk and has no basis in history or reality... it just made for a good story.

The most famous North American mythical "spend a night and WIN!" place is probably a legend that grew from Sarah Winchester's mansion in California... because Winchester was more than a little weird AND continuously built on to the home until the day she died AND the whole reason for the higgledy-piggedly design is to keep spirits "lost" in the home AND she was VERY wealthy thanks to the Winchester firearms inheritance, there were "rumours" about being able to spend a night in the house after her passing... but again, these were rumours only.

So, as far as we know, there is no "legit" place that offers this... but many rumoured and fictional sites to be certain! JREF's million dollar prize to anyone who can prove the paranormal may also add to the general story in some fashion.