explainer · 2026-08-21 · 5 min read
A purchase does not improve your odds. That is the entire genre.
If buying helped, it would not be a sweepstakes. It would be a lottery.
This is a legal explainer, not a story about a particular lawsuit's inner workings.
Under the Deceptive Mail Prevention and Enforcement Act, a sweepstakes mailing that fails to disclose — in the mailing, in the rules, and on the entry form — that no purchase is necessary is nonmailable matter. The same body of law requires a disclosure that a purchase will not improve your chances of winning.
The policy reason is simple. Chance plus consideration (payment) plus a prize is a lottery. States reserve lotteries for themselves. Private parties who want to give away a prize by chance must remove the payment requirement, which is why AMOE — alternate method of entry — exists.
Magazine brands have spent decades pairing a sweepstakes with a subscription offer. That pairing is legal only if the 'no' envelope, the free online form, or the mail-in card is a real entry with the same chance as the 'yes' envelope. Reader's Digest's own international FAQ pages say that YES and NO envelopes are both entries. PCH's official rules say buying will not help you win, and that it would not be lawful to give buyers an advantage.
In 2023 the FTC ordered Publishers Clearing House to more clearly separate shopping pages from free entry and to obtain an express acknowledgment that buying does not help. We mention that order because it is public, and because it is the strongest recent reminder that NPN language on a rules page is necessary but not sufficient. The free path has to be findable.
If a page makes you feel that you are falling behind the people who bought the bundle, close the tab. That feeling is the product. It is not the law.
Related reviews: Publishers Clearing House