Up Your Odds of Winning a Sweepstakes

If you’ve gotten here without reading the first article, you might want to start there — if you’ve come by way of google, etc. looking for tips on winning the lottery or other games of chance – you are in the wrong place.  This article is about upping your odds with regards to entering sweepstakes.

So… on that note:

Chose Wisely – My first choice would be sweepstakes that are run by reputable companies, whose names you know or are at least familiar.   The reason I add this point is because sometimes smaller entities run their sweepstakes by their own (sometimes inconsistent) rules.  And…often times just to get and make a mailing list.  I was familiar with a company in the late 1980’s, or early 1990’s  (before I was entering any sweepstakes at all) who kept extending their entry date and in the end didn’t really use a random generation for the winner.   This is always possible (though I would think rare).  But without that third party involvement (hiring someone to handle the details) it might be hard to remove the temptation to award the prize to someone they know, or to make up a winners name and never award the prize at all.

And as a sub-point to choosing wisely – chose to enter only those sweepstakes you really would like to win.  It could be the grand prize you have your eye on, or even if available, one of the smaller prizes — but there is no sense in wasting time entering for something you don’t really want.  Remember you will have to pay taxes on any and all wins here in the US.

Enter Often – Once you have chosen the sweepstakes that you want to enter, enter as many times as they allow.  Maybe it’s only once, maybe daily, weekly or monthly – but make sure you get as many entries in as you can.  This will increase your odds of being chosen as one of the winners.

Many people have told me that they prefer the one entry sweepstakes, saying everyone has an even chance.  True – but when you can enter every day, and if you do, your odds of winning go up considerably.

Avoid the Over Advertised Sweepstakes – This isn’t to say you can’t win them, someone will win, but the likelihood of it being you is astronomical.  I think about a man a few years back with one of the larger sweepstakes (The HGTV’s  Dream home giveaway) where he said he entered once and won.  That’s the exception, not the rule.  If you watched this program you would have seen that they had at least 10-20 bins approximately 4 ft X 4 ft X 4 ft (yes a 4 ft cube) full of envelopes of entries (estimated to be about 900,000), as well as 38 million online entries.  To have entered only once and won is a spectacular feat — and congratulations to him, but what about those other approx. 39 million entries that didn’t.

And… Enter Sweepstakes with Multiple Prizes – simply put, the more times they have a chance to draw YOUR name, the better chance you have to win something.

I have won at least one trip each year since 2001, except for one…. and in that year my biggest prize was a laptop computer (not too shabby by the way!).  So far this year’s trip is already in the record books.  It was to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida and we had an amazingly good time, thanks to the wonderful sponsors!

Other Articles on this Subject:

Check Out:   Are U Ready to Win? 

Read my article on why you should read the Sweepstakes Rules

Check out some sweepstakes I post, as well as winners lists (right hand column) here: YESUWON.COM

Disclaimer: I have not been compensated in any way for this article, and all opinions contained herein are my own.