PCH now sells sweepstakes entries. Free entry is mail-only.

Published September 5, 2026. Every claim below cites a document we opened: pch.com's own pages and the official rules for GWY #23097 (both retrieved September 2, 2026), Apple's store records, dated user reports, and the public record of the 2025 bankruptcy already sourced in our PCH+ review.

Disclosure: this site's publisher, Luck Incorporated LLC, operates Chance Infinite, a free-entry sweepstakes app. PCH's apps appear in our rankings and this article updates what we know about their operator. The full disclosure is in the footer.

What pch.com sells today

The homepage titled "Online Sweepstakes & Prizes Since 1967" now sells four membership tiers, each priced by automatic monthly entries: Silver at $10 a month for 500 entries, Gold at $25 for 2,000, Platinum at $60 for 6,000 (marked "RECOMMENDED"), and Diamond at $150 for 20,000 (marked "BEST VALUE"). Beside them sit one-time "Quick Entry Packs" from 500 entries at $20 up to 20,000 at $300, half price for members. The current flagship is GWY #23097, a $1,000,000 Summer SuperPrize ending September 22, 2026 at 11:59 p.m. ET per its rules. The site's "Ways To Enter" section lists exactly two: become a member, or buy a Quick Entry Pack.

The free route is not one of the listed ways. It appears on the shopping pages only as footer fine print, "NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. A PURCHASE WILL NOT IMPROVE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING," with a pointer: "For information on how to enter for free, please see the instructions in the Official Rules linked below."

What the rules actually provide

The official rules for GWY #23097, hosted on the Shopify CDN the new pch.com uses, list four entry routes: store purchases at one entry per dollar of merchandise, optional paid packages, membership auto-entries, and a free mail-in AMOE. The mail route asks for your details and the giveaway number, legibly printed on plain paper, mailed to PCH Digital, LLC, GWY #23097, P.O. Box 358, Watertown, NY 13601, postmarked by September 22 and received by September 26. And then the sentence that reframes the whole storefront: "Each mail-in entry received will be equal to 1,850 entries."

Do the arithmetic the page does not do for you. One stamped envelope outweighs a full month of the $10 Silver tier by a factor of 3.7. Eleven envelopes roughly match a $150 Diamond month. The rules also state that all entries, "whether obtained through the Free Alternate Method of Entry (AMOE), purchase, membership, or optional packages, are treated equally and have the same chance of winning, subject to the maximum entry limits set forth in the applicable promotion." The free path is not a token; per the operator's own rules it is the most entry-dense action on offer. It is simply never described where the buying happens.

One more rules detail buyers should price in: unless the winner elects otherwise in writing within 15 days, the $1,000,000 prize pays as a lump sum with an estimated present value of $375,000, per the same rules.

The echo worth naming

We are not a regulator and we do not claim any law is being broken. We will state two documented facts side by side. On June 27, 2023, the FTC announced an $18.5 million action against the old Publishers Clearing House over dark patterns that made consumers believe a purchase was necessary to win or would increase their chances of winning, per ftc.gov; refunds went to 281,724 consumers in April 2025. In September 2026, the rebuilt pch.com presents paid memberships and entry packs as the ways to enter, and the free route as a footer pointer into a rules PDF. Whether that presentation would satisfy the 2023 order's spirit is a question for the FTC; what a player should take from it is simpler: the envelope exists, and it is a better per-action deal than the $10 tier.

The apps, quietly abandoned

The old PCH's free-entry apps, both reviewed on this site, have been reported dark since early April 2026, with no announcement from the operator. Apple's store records, retrieved September 2, show PCH+ last updated March 26, 2026 and PCH Lotto last updated January 7, 2026. Dated user reports describe what followed: an April 2, 2026 Trustpilot review says "April 2nd they killed the old pch app"; a May 5 review reports "The app went dark before all the games ended"; a May 8 review describes error and maintenance messages across the apps after reinstalling. The rebuilt pch.com's own navigation, Shop, Giveaways, Memberships, Watch & Win, Games, mentions neither app. Our PCH+ and PCH Lotto reviews carry them as unavailable, and this article is the dated record of why.

The context is the 2025 bankruptcy our reviews document from Associated Press reporting: PCH filed for Chapter 11 in April 2025, ARB Interactive bought the assets that July, and prizes won before July 15, 2025 were disclaimed with two exceptions. Separately, a Prize Protection Program announced September 30, 2025, in a release distributed via Business Wire as republished by Yahoo Finance, says future prize money sits in FDIC-insured escrow. That escrow claim remains the operator's own: the announcement names no bank and no trustee, and we found no public filing that verifies the structure. We will revisit it on the program's first anniversary.

What a player should do with all this

If you want into GWY #23097, the rules hand you the play: mail an envelope, or several within the entry limits the rules set, before September 22. If you are considering a membership, price it against the envelope first, and read the odds line the rules themselves carry: "Odds depend upon number of entries received." And treat the "no purchase necessary" sentence as what our whole site exists to test: a claim that is only as good as the free path behind it. Our explainers on mail-in entry and on why purchases cannot help cover the law and the practice.

Common questions

Is there still a free way to enter PCH sweepstakes?

Yes. The official rules for GWY #23097 provide a free mail-in entry: print your details and the giveaway number on plain paper and mail it to PCH Digital, LLC, GWY #23097, P.O. Box 358, Watertown, NY 13601, postmarked by September 22, 2026 and received by September 26. Each mailed envelope counts as 1,850 entries, per the rules.

Do purchases improve your odds at PCH?

The rules state that all entries, free or paid, are treated equally: no single entry beats another. What money buys is more entries. A Diamond membership adds 20,000 entries a month for $150; the free route adds 1,850 per mailed envelope for a stamp. More entries mean more chances, and the free envelope is the cheapest way to get them.

What happened to the PCH+ and PCH Lotto apps?

Apple's store records show PCH+ last updated March 26, 2026 and PCH Lotto last updated January 7, 2026. Dated user reports from April and May 2026 describe both apps dark with error and maintenance messages, and the rebuilt pch.com's own navigation does not mention either app. Our reviews list both as unavailable.