A Beginners Guide to Sweepstakes For Sport in the US
Aug. 28 2024, Published 3:00 a.m. ET
As sports betting rises in the US and shows no signs of slowing down, there are plenty of other avenues that bettors are seeking to try and scratch their gambling itch. Although sweepstakes and sports betting involve starkly contrasting markets, there’s still an overlap in the type of customers they appeal to.
For those who are less knowledgeable about sweepstakes but enjoy a bet every now, we’ve compiled a guide to cover the basics and discuss why they’re still maintaining a solid audience. Even in a landscape where traditional online providers are making significant headway, sweepstakes are finding a market, and it’s a cause for intriguing debate in the industry.
Sweepstakes Casinos for Sports Defined
Basically, a sweepstakes casino gaming platform is a site or app that allows gamers to play casino games without risking their own money. These sites champion the use of in-game currencies, the most common of which is the gold coin. Sweepstakes sports are the same, where site currency can be used to bet on sporting events, both real and virtual.
This gaming model gives bettors who might be more interested in the mechanics of a gamerather than the wager the opportunity to seek out different gaming options without having to concern themselves with monetary loss.
Although sweepstakes providers like Zula Casino, Sweeptastic and LuckyBird focus on slot gaming, plenty offer other classic casino games, such as poker and blackjack. Again, the sweepstakes sports options mirror that of traditional providers. The main distinction of sweepstakes is that they do not accept real-money wagers, which means they don’t need to comply with the same gambling legislation that real-money providers need to.
The Market For Sweepstakes
So, where did the market come from? It’s an interesting question because historically there has been little to no interest in casino games that don’t pay out real cash prizes.
However, the market has increased tremendously, proving itself to be a worthy adversary to the titans of the traditional sector, sweepstakes surged in demand across many territories where people could not gamble but still wanted to experience casino gaming. This led to the sweepstakes sports betting market emerging as well. It’s now at a stage where websites like WSN (https://www.wsn.com/sweepstakes/new/), are compiling expert reviews and listing the top sweepstakes based on their criteria.
It’s interesting to watch the sweepstakes model rise to prominence. Not only do they remove the essence of sports betting for many by not offering real-money prizes, but they also have a much more demanding business model, so they can’t rely on the same level of revenue from their customer base. Despite this, they’re proving to be a great alternative for those looking to play either casino games or place a sports bet without worrying about losing money.
How Sweepstakes Return a Profit
Another interesting angle of sweepstakes casinos and sportsbooks is that they can return a profit despite not taking money from customers to place their bets. While sweepstakes will offer some form of welcome bonus in gold coins, they need to think outside the box to make their business viable.
Sweepstakes gambling games
Many sweepstakes gambling games offer prizes, whether vouchers for online retailers or physical prizes like clothing. If sweepstakes gamers win a significant number of coins, they can redeem them for small cash prizes and purchase more in-game tokens.
While this might be close to a legislative grey area on paper, sweepstakes limit these prizes, and many have different redemption features, so it appeases regulators enough that there’s no overarching concern that they are offering a real-money betting platform.
Advertising revenue
Sweepstakes also maximize advertising space, meaning gamers will likely encounter more ads on their site than traditional gambling platforms. As they aren’t working with the same potential scope for income as traditional providers, advertising can make their layout and site aesthetic look slightly different, but this doesn’t mean the games on their platform lack quality.
Social media and podcasts
Sweepstakes will often usesocial media marketing tools to boost their platform and presence. Given the range of tools available to connect with customers digitally, sweepstakes sites follow a similar path to traditional providers and will often seek out other types of media that are growing in popularity.
Radio broadcasts and advertising used to be a popular avenue for gambling companies, and while the prominent names will still use every means available, sweepstakes and sportsbooks often need to be more selective because of their budget and audience. This is why they seek out DIY forms of media such as podcasts and influencers.
Final Thoughts
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The main thing to remember about sweepstakes games is that they use their own in-house currencies to facilitate gaming. While gamers might spend some money to purchase these tokens, the in-game currency will travel further than real money wagers on a standard platform.
While sweepstakes sports might not have the same type of market as sweepstakes casinos, some analysts are under the impression that this could change in the future. Mobile platforms continue looking for ways to innovate, and sweepstakes sites remain one of the few areas of casino gaming that doesn’t feel over-explored or saturated, so it’s interesting times ahead.
