I get asked that question all the time….it goes something like this “Hey Sweepy, how do I know which sweepstakes are good and which are scams?” These days, its tougher and tougher to answer that question, so you really have to do your research.
Here’s what I do before getting into a new sweepstakes. Now, you don’t have to do this, its more of a ritual for me as I am involved in blogging and writing about the industry. **Disclaimer – remember, these things are supposed to FUN! What i’m about to show you is not fun, haha, so lets not loose sight of why we play lotto or sweeps, we are trying to have fun!
Lets start with 3 rules today and then later this week I’ll give you the last 3 rules which are really the ones to focus on. Sorry for the cliffhanger, but we have to pay the bills here too!
- Site – check the site, look around, are the links all active, are there any broken links or pages? Do you see 404 redirect pages, or outdated material? That’s usually a good sign that you may want to poke around a bit more.
- Rules – by law, every sweepstakes must have a long-form rules page explaining how winners are picked, how many, when, and what your odds of winning are (more on this later). You don’t have to get into the weed here, you can usually get your answers just by poking around the first 4 paragraphs.
- Location, Location, Location – I do not play sweeps from outside the US. Strike that, I actually have played Canadian sweeps and once played a Mexican sweepstakes. OK, but the idea is that you should focus on U.S. competitions as they are regulated far more then other countries. Or at least in terms of the regulations we are familiar with.
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