Contests and Sweepstakes Tips and Tools

Mistakes You May Be Making That Ruin Your Chances of Winning a Sweepstakes Prize

Do not miss out on great prizes because of silly mistakes.

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By PETE THOMPSON | Updated February 28, 2024

Have you entered lots of sweepstakes but not won as much as you hoped? If you have never won a prize, you might think you're just unlucky. However, before you give up it's possible that the reason your name isn't being picked as a sweepstakes winner is that you're doing something that's hurting your chances or scoring a prize. Ask yourself; are you making any of these common mistakes

No One Can Reach You

Often sweepstakes fans will create a second email address specifically for entering contests and sweepstakes. This isn't, in itself, a bad idea. Doing so will keep your primary inbox lighter and it will let you keep track of all your contest entries in one place.

Where people make a big mistake here is that, because we all have busy lives, they forget to check their contest email for days, even weeks, and end up missing out on a message that could have led to a big win (or a nice prize anyway.)

If you are going to use a dedicated email for contest entries set yourself a reminder on your phone to check it, or use a utility like Gmail, which will let you stay logged on to several Gmail accounts at once, so checking on your prize status will take just a few clicks and be easier to fit into your busy day.

Phone notifications may be another problem. It is perfectly reasonable not to want to give out your real phone number on a sweepstakes entry form, as doing so may lead to lots of calls you don't want, and for many people it's a privacy issue too. Most sweepstakes don't call people these days, but some still do. Give a fake phone number, and they would never be able to call you to inform you won.

Still don't want to give out your real phone number? Set up a free to use Google Voice number to use with sweepstakes instead. These are real numbers, so will be perfectly 'contest legal' to use, but will allow you to protect your real digits if calls from strangers are a concern for you.

Contest Notifications Are Going to Spam

Often to complete an entry into a sweepstakes you are required to confirm your email address. Sometimes it seems like that email never arrives, and eventually you forget all about the contest and move on to the next one. But did you check your spam folder when the expected message didn't show up?

Some email clients have aggressive spam filters that will dump anything that mentions sweepstakes, free, prizes, or other 'trigger' keywords right into your spam box, aka email graveyard.

To prevent this, and make sure you don't miss out on important contest emails, check your spam after entering a sweepstakes, or, if possible, whitelist the company who will be sending you emails in regard to the contest.

*Note. If you enter a Facebook contest, it's rare that Facebook will notify of messages that have been sent by someone not on your friends list. To avoid missing a message that could lead to a prize, check 'other messages' in Facebook Messenger once in a while too.

You Aren't Reading The Rules Properly

Yes, the fine print is boring and tedious to read. It's much easier to check the box that states you agree to everything associated with a sweepstakes entry without bothering to read exactly what it is you are agreeing to.

However, if you are not reading the rules you may not know that you are entering too often, or not often enough, or that you live in a state where entrance to the contest is prohibited, or calls for extra permissions. You may even be missing out on extra chances to win, as often, there in the fine print, you'll find an address that extra entries can be sent to, usually in order for the company offering the contest to comply with no purchase necessary laws.

You Aren't Entering Enough Contests

You have to be in it to win it, the old saying goes. The more contests and sweepstakes you enter, the more likely you are to win something. As any legitimate sweepstakes contest should be free to enter - at least once - then entering more of them to improve your chances of scoring a prize is a good idea.

You do have to ensure you would like the prize you'd be in line to win of course. Winning a year's supply of dog food probably won't be of much use to you if you only have cats in the house! However, if you get into the habit of entering sweepstakes more often then your luck is statistically bound to change at some point.

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