My presentation

My presentation covered the topic of online sweepstakes. I have been a "sweeper" since 1995. Back then, it was much harder to find online sweepstakes, but also much easier to win them because there were so many less people online. There were basic bulletin board groups, such as Delphi, where someone would start a group and others with common interests would join. I joined a sweepstaking group on Delphi, and we would post sweepstakes that we came across to help other sweepers have the chance to enter. Rather than looking at this as making your winning odds worse, we looked at it as "what goes around comes around." (If I help someone else who ends up winning, someday I may end up winning something because he/she helps me.) There are much larger forums online now with the same purpose in mind. Some sites charge a monthly fee to belong, and many of those sites are the ones with the best sweepstakes: the ones with better odds because they are local, or the ones with many valuable prizes, etc. However, there are many great free sites as well that list sweepstakes after sweepstakes available to enter. Many have a direct online link to the entry page.

Why would someone give something away? Many people worry that sweepstakes are not legitimate, and sometimes for good reason. People say "you can't get something for nothing." Companies use their marketing dollars to give product and money away to advertise their company. If a company can get someone to their website to enter a drawing, and then that person looks at their site and ends up buying their product or service...multiply that by thousands of  people, and you can have a very successful promotion. There are scammers out there who will set up fake promotions to get your information so they can spam you. That is one reason that having a paid subscription to a sweepstakes website is a good idea. The sweeps site's owners and editors check out the sweepstakes before posting them to determine that they are legitimate. Another way to protect yourself is to enter sweepstakes of companies that are well-known, such as Coca-Cola, Amazon, Pepsi, etc. Set up an email strictly for using to enter sweepstakes, because you definitely will get junk mail. You could look at it as the "nothing" part of "you can't get something for nothing." Is it worth it to me to get a ton of junk mail, but in the middle of all that, find a legitimate email that tells me I won a big-screen TV (or a trip, or computer?) You bet it is!!