How it works

Playing

1. 1

   Sign up free

   An email address and a password gets you started. Before your first entry we ask for your name, address and date of birth, we need those to confirm you are eligible and to pay you if you win. There is nothing to buy, now or ever.

2. 2

   Pick your numbers

   Open a game and choose your numbers, or hit Quick Pick and let the site choose them at random. Quick Pick numbers have exactly the same chance as numbers you agonise over. Every number in the pool is equally likely. In Lucky Deck you pick playing cards instead, and each card stands for a number, so it plays exactly the same way.

3. 3

   One free entry per game, per draw

   Each free game is drawn once a day and gives you one entry in each draw. Play one game or play them all, entering more games gives you more chances, and it still costs nothing. The Vault Run and High Roller cost tokens instead: The Vault Run takes 2 entries a day and High Roller takes as many entries as you have tokens for.

4. 4

   Check back after the draw

   Every draw closes at midnight Eastern and is drawn just after, except The Midday Draw, which closes at noon and is drawn just after. So an entry into The Midday Draw made after its close is for the next day's draw. Your entries are scored automatically and anything you win shows up in your account.

You have to be a US citizen living in one of the 50 US states or DC, and 18 or older (19 in Alabama and Nebraska, 21 in Mississippi). Void where prohibited. The Official Rules have the full detail.

You do not have to match them all

Every game pays out on partial matches as well as the jackpot. Matching a few numbers wins a small prize, and that happens often. Your odds depend only on how many of your numbers come up, not on how many other people entered, so a busy day never makes your entry worth less.

Odds are the chance that exactly that many of your numbers are drawn. Most entries win nothing, that is what makes a sweepstakes a sweepstakes. In Lucky Deck, every card is a number underneath: spades are 1 to 13, hearts 14 to 26, diamonds 27 to 39 and clubs 40 to 52, ace low in each.

Instant games: no waiting for midnight

The draws above run at midnight, and The Midday Draw at noon. The instant games do not make you wait: scratch a card, spin a wheel, drop a coin, and the round is over before you put your phone down. They are free, they are separate from the daily entry, and they are held to the same proof as the draws. The board’s seed is committed and published before you touch it, which is the section below and is what stops a result being chosen once it knows what you picked.

Every game pays you 1 token for playing, the draws and these alike, whether the round wins anything or not. Tokens are not money and cannot be bought: you earn them by turning up. What they are for is prize giveaways and the two bigger draws that take them as entry. That is the whole loop, and it is why there is nothing to sell you.

Play on consecutive days and it adds up. Day 3 of a streak pays 25 tokens, every 7th day 75 tokens, and every 30th 250 tokens. Entering a draw or playing an instant game counts, the coin pusher and roulette table aside, and missing a day starts it again.

How you can prove the draw was not rigged

Most prize sites ask you to trust that the numbers were drawn honestly. There is no way to check, and no way for them to prove it. We do it differently: every draw is locked in before entries open and published in a form that anyone can verify afterwards. The technique is called a commit-and-reveal, and it works like sealing a prediction in an envelope before the game starts.

1. 1. Before entries open: we commit

   When a draw opens, the site generates a long secret random value called the seed, and derives that day’s winning numbers from it. The numbers exist from that moment, but nobody sees them. What we publish instead is sha256(seed), the seed’s cryptographic fingerprint, called the commitment. It is a 64-character string that reveals nothing about the seed, and it is public before the first entry is accepted.

2. 2. Entries are taken

   Members pick numbers all day. The winning numbers are already fixed, and what we published is on the record. It belongs to one seed and to nothing else, and there is no way to work backwards from it or to find a second seed that fits it. So we cannot swap in a friendlier seed after seeing what people picked: the number we published in the morning would no longer be the right one, and it is already out there.

3. 3. After entries close: we reveal

   Entries close at midnight Eastern (The Midday Draw at noon), the draw runs, and the seed itself is published alongside the winning numbers and the commitment from step 1. Every completed draw on the results page shows all three, plus a verification status.

4. 4. Anyone can check it

   Every completed draw shows both numbers with a button that checks they belong together, worked out on your own device rather than ours. If they match, the winning numbers were decided before any entry existed and were never touched afterwards. If they ever do not, the draw is not honest, and you would be holding the proof.

Why it is free

No purchase is ever necessary, and there is nothing you can buy to improve your chances. That is not a promotion, a prize draw that charges to enter is a lottery, which private operators may not run. MegaMoneySweeps is paid for by the advertising on the site, and the prizes come out of that revenue. What we ask in return is that you come back tomorrow. Our Privacy Policy explains what advertising means for your data.

If you win

• Wins appear in your account right after the draw, and we email the address on your account.
• To collect a prize, press Claim prize on your account page. Cash is paid once your unpaid winnings reach $10, by PayPal, a check by post or a gift card by email, whichever you choose; smaller wins add up until then. A gift card or other giveaway prize has its own Claim prize button beside it. Tokens and extra plays land in your account without a claim. A prize not claimed within 90 days may be forfeited.
• We confirm you are eligible before paying: old enough, a US citizen, your email confirmed, a real address and phone number on the account, and every entry made within the rules. Keep your details current so a prize is not held up.
• Winners are published as first name, last initial and state, for example “Jordan R., TX”, on the winners page. Never your full name or contact details.
• Prizes are income, and you are responsible for any tax on them. Every prize on the site is under $600; a prize at or above that in a calendar year would be reported to the IRS on Form 1099-MISC.
• We will never ask you to pay a fee to release a prize. Anyone who does is not us.