Are Sweepstakes Odds Math or Mystery?

When you enter online sweepstakes, sweepstakes odds to win may be on your mind. I've attended some national sweepstakes conventions where speakers will often talk about odds. Never being a math major my eyes start to glaze over when someone gets into the math of the actual odds. It started me thinking. Do the sweepstakes odds always count?

Sweepstakes Odds Defined

Sweepstakes Odds are really a numbers game, often defined as a pair of numbers, used in both sweepstakes, and statistics. In statistics, the odds for or odds of some event reflect the likelihood that the theory will be proven, while odds against reflect the likelihood that it will not. In sweepstakes, the odds are the ratio of prize to stake, and do not necessarily reflect exactly the probabilities. Are you confused yet? Simply put, sweepstakes odds are not always a definite. Odds are a mathematical expression that explains what your chances of winning are based on the number of entrants. If there are 100 sweepstakes entries total and you submitted 1 entry your odds are 100 to 1.

Using Sweepstakes Odds in Your Favor

Have you ever noticed that some sweepstakes are very easy to enter while others require some skill or complexity? The odds for sweepstakes that are easy to enter will be very high. Due to the ease of entry, more people will likely enter this promotion thereby increasing the odds. However, some other types of sweepstakes like photo submissions or essays are less likely to attract a large pool of entrants and thereby better the odds to win.

I remember several years ago my wife entering a Hungry Man essay contest. In order to submit your entry, you had to write a little essay explaining why your man was a Hungry Man. My wife submitted the entry never expecting to win and actually won the top cash prize. This is a perfect example of how odds worked to our favor. Fewer people would even contemplate writing an essay so our odds were very good to win the grand prize.

Cases Where Sweepstakes Odds are not Very Accurate

Forest Gump would say sweepstakes are “like a box of chocolates”.  Forest would be correct. There are soo many variations of sweepstakes that odds are not always as clear as the number of entrants against your sole entry. Our first example of this would be a promotion where the prize administrator selects a winner based on skill or creativity. Upload a video to win a Gift Card. All entries will be reviewed by the sponsor and the most creative video that uses the sponsor's product will win. This is a great example where you can almost better your own odds by doing exactly what the sweepstakes sponsor suggests.

Instant Win Sweepstakes are the Sweepstakes Odds Breaker

Some instant win sweepstakes use a very random selection process to pick the winners. It is difficult to factor odds in this situation because the entire prize pool is not calculated. Having administered and configured instant win sweepstakes in the past there are usually winner selection settings for the administrator. These settings could be “pick 4 winners per day randomly”. This means all 4 winners in any day could occur in the same hour or totally random for any given day.

A real-world example of this would be when we set up an instant win sweepstake with a very well known sweepstakes system. When we created the promotion the system estimated the odds would be 10000 to 1. All 4 instant winners were selected during the first 4000 entries.  This is a great example where odds were more of a guess than anything factual.

Tactics for Tipping the Sweepstakes Odds in Your Favor

If you enter sweepstakes on Sweepstakes Advantage you will see in every listing where we note “hits”. This hits number is the number of times someone visiting SA has clicked that specific sweepstakes listing. The lower this hits number the less likely this sweepstake has a high number of entries.  If you combine this tactic with the expiring sweepstakes section in our Sweepstakes Plus area of the site your odds should be improved.

One other way to tips odds in your favor is to pay particular attention to the official sweepstakes rules. Some sweepstakes may allow more than one entry per household or may state one entry per email address. If the official sweepstakes rules do not state One Entry Per Household you could submit an entry for you and your wife. This would increase your entries by 1 where you would normally only get one entry.

The Sweepstakes Odds Conclusion

We suggest you have fun and enter to win sweepstakes prizes that you covet. Don't always go by the odds because this is sometimes not an exact science. Always read the rules as to make sure you are being precise and are in compliance with the promotion. If you have writing or video skills put them to fun use with sweepstakes. Good Luck and May the Odds be With You!