Publisher’s Clearing House Leans Into Casino-Style Sweepstakes

We had to check our calendar to make sure April Fool's Day was still next week, but the Press Release from Publisher's Clearing House, America's most famous sweepstakes operator, announcing the company was considering entering the social casino industry appears to be authentic. 

For the past 70 years, PCH has sold magazine subscriptions. In 1967, it partnered with America's most beloved monthly, Reader's Digest, to begin offering sweepstakes prizes to subscribers. Business boomed, and the company had more than $100 million in revenue by the late 1980s.

Interestingly, though, the company was caught up in its own Sweeps Casino-type scandal as far back as the turn of the century. Many states, just like today, accused the company of misleading consumers about their chance of winning or that buying more subscriptions might lead to better odds at winning what had now become enormous prize pools.

California claimed it had records of more than 5,000 residents who had spent more than $2,500 a piece to enhance their odds of winning at a time when that was still a considerable sum of money. Lawsuits and actions from Attorney Generals poured in throughout the late 1990s, and much like today, an anti-sweep mindset swept through State and Federal legislatures. In fact, many of the state sweepstakes laws that online casino sweeps companies operate under today come from this period.

Even the Federal bill, the Deceptive Mail Prevention and Enforcement Act of 2000, sprang from consumers' frustration during this time frame with what seemed like almost daily mail touting this giveaway or that and promising riches and luxury if you would just take a minute to send off this $20 subscription to Life or Time Magazine. Throughout the 1990s, PCH  alone sent out more than 200 million pieces of junk mail every year. 

As a quick aside, my grandmother actually won the Publisher's Clearing House in the mid-70s, receiving $50,000 cash, a Ford Mustang, a trip to Hawaii, which she took my mother on, and a washer and dryer. So, it's not to say that there weren't indeed winners, my own family being one of them, but that a large majority of people were paying to play in what amounted to an unlicensed lottery under the guise of magazine subscriptions.

Flash forward to today, and Publishers Clearing House has become an online behemoth. Over a decade ago, they moved most of their sweepstakes and giveaway promotions entirely online. They have their very own search engine, PCH Search and Win, which awards prizes to people who use it. The company then monetizes information about those users, sells them advertising, and uses their registration information to add to its massive database of more than 170,000,000 users.

They have long dabbled at something very close to the sweeps casino model seen in casinos like McLuck and Hello Millions, with their own sites like Candy Stand and PCH Games. As far back as 2006, they had video poker-like games that one could play on their sites for prizes. So, this week's announcement that they would partner with SCCG to explore further social gaming monetization shouldn't come as a complete surprise. 

SCCG Management has more than thirty years of experience advising and connecting iGaming operators and social casino owners with strategic partners. SCCG is expected to connect PCH with top sweepstakes casino operators, many of whom are eager to access the company’s unrivaled brand recognition and database of 170 million users.

All of whom have already shown a propensity to sign up for sweepstakes-type promotions and prize pools in the past. And apparently not concerned with the fact that the current odds to win the PCH 50k a Week For Life Drawing are at 6.2 billion to 1. A list like that may prove quite valuable, but with many state legislatures once again up in arms, PCH may have felt it was now or never in order to get top dollar for it.