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Spend enough time online, and you will come across some kind of competition or sweepstakes that will give you a chance to win prizes. Most of us wash these tremors as carrots - veiled corporate efforts to gather our data and court-free advertising. The chances of actually winning seem modest.
But a community of avid "sweepers" claim to have mastered the art of winning these sweepstakes. They consistently land hundreds of prizes from year to year - holiday packages, cars, event tickets, electronics, and cash - and their hulls sometimes amount to thousands of dollars.
Who are they how do they do it? And are these contests too good to be true?
"Wider" community
Every year, an estimated 55 million Americans enter some sort of sweepstakes (known as "competitions" in the UK or "contests" in Canada).
While there are many ways to enter sweepstakes (mail-in, call-in, in-person drawings, and text messages), most of today's contestants take place on the Internet, where optimistic award-winning retweets, hashtags, Instagram photos, Can participate through, and digital form. But for the so-called "wider" community, it is a way of life.
They gather on forums such as Sweepstake Advantage, subscribe to newspapers such as I Win Competitions, Sweepsheets and Sweeping America, and gather at conferences around the world. In private Facebook groups, they swap strategy tips and demonic victory stories: $ 22k fishing boats, all-inclusive trips to Japan, and new cars.
A serious member of the wider community will enter anywhere from 20 to 300 sweepstakes every day, often using sweepstake aggregators, automated form-fillers and Excel spreadsheets.
While the community is mostly made up of women, entry into the digital competition has attracted a diverse spectrum of competitors, from college kids to retirees - all of whom claim that winning sweepstakes were made into something of science can go.
A long-time sweeper told The Hustle, "I don't enter the lottery or gamble or take big risks." "But with the sweepstakes, I can guarantee a lot more that I can win."
According to an informal survey of 585 respondents, nearly half of all regular sweepers report wins equal to $ 1,250 or more per year; One quarter wins in $ 3k + prize.
What about that small 4% fraction that awards more than $ 12k per year? Are they just exceptionally lucky or do they have some kind of system that increases their odds of closing that dream vacation?
To find out, we spoke with a number of women who have collectively won a competition online of over $ 500k.
In his 20-year sweepstakes, he gave away over 300k (US $ 376k) in prizes, including:
1. A new VW Beetle
2. 35k in cash
3. 23k in product voucher
4. Trips to Tokyo, Barcelona, Antigua, Cyprus and Brazil
5. Front-row tickets for London Fashion Week
6. 7 straight years of Glastonbury concert tickets
7. A washing machine, refrigerator, and dishwasher
8. 12 tv
9. 5 iPhones
10. 9 ipod and ipad
11. Flight lesson
12. A year of free ice cream
On average, Coke enters around 300 online competitions per month (worth about 10 hours of work) and wins 1k in prizes.
In 2019 alone, it collectively won 51 prizes of 5,389 - all from a trip to Mallorca, Spain on a private party jet plane, to a machine that shoots soccer balls. (He shared with us the spreadsheet of his victory).
Her strategy is simple: she enters a predominantly "qualitative" online contest that allows her to stand out in some way, such as a tweet or photo tag on Instagram.
"A lot of people say that [sweepstakes] are just pure chance," she says. "But the people running them don't pick up at random.
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