Sweepstakes are nothing but giveaways. It is just a regular method of attracting customers of various types into a particular product or company by holding a competition. Sweepstakes are very popular in the United States, Canada and other countries where competition between rising companies are high.

It can also be called a type of lottery where a large number of people participate. But the only difference between regular lottery and sweepstake is that a sweepstake holder doesn’t charge an entry fee or a particular sum of money because in most countries including the United States, it collides with the federal laws of lottery and causes problems.

These firms attract various people through different promotional means necessary. Companies like the Readers Digest tend to draw people through their books. The prizes differ from small scale or large scale depending on the firms organizing the sweepstake.

Small prizes include I pods and cell phones which are popular among the people to large scale which includes vehicles such as cars or a very large amount of money and sometimes an all expense paid holiday for a family. Even a fully furnished house is given to the lucky winners.

Sweepstakes may be a quiz competition which decides the winner’s bases on their IQ and intelligence and various external events. The most common type is the ones where we see in movie theatres and fast food centers where we are required to put of name and contact details into the event box and a lucky winner is chosen randomly.

These events are kept in a more lively kind of atmosphere as much as possible to differentiate them from regular gambling. Moreover the federal laws in many countries are very strict against these sweepstakes due to the increase in scams and illegal motives.