Prize promotion glossary — skill contest, sweepstakes, AMOE, consideration

These are the words a brand runs into the first time it puts a prize behind an email form. They are not marketing synonyms — sweepstakes, contest and lottery describe different legal structures, and using one word for another is how a promotion ends up analysed as something its operator never intended.

Every definition below is the short form of something the longer guides work through with sources. Start with skill contest vs sweepstakes if you are choosing a structure, or the Official Rules checklist if you have chosen one and need to publish it.

Skill contest

A prize promotion where who wins is determined by entrant performance — accuracy, speed, or judged quality — rather than by chance. Removing chance takes the promotion out of the three-part lottery test, but it does not exempt it from advertising law, platform rules, or state contest statutes. [3] [1]

Sweepstakes

A prize promotion where the winner is selected by chance, structured to avoid consideration — typically by making entry free. The free entry path is what keeps a chance promotion from being a lottery. [2] [4]

Lottery

Prize, chance and consideration present together. Private lotteries are generally illegal under federal and state law, which is why a promotion is usually designed to remove one of the three elements. [1] [2]

Prize

Something of value offered to participants. The first element of the lottery test, and the one a promotion almost never removes, since the prize is the point. [2]

Chance

The element satisfied when who wins is not determined by skill. A random draw is the clearest example; so is a draw held among qualifying high scorers, which reintroduces chance at the last step. [1] [6]

Consideration

What the entrant gives up to enter: payment or purchase, and in some states substantial time or effort that benefits the sponsor. States differ on whether non-monetary effort counts, which is why "no purchase" alone does not settle the question everywhere. [2] [1]

AMOE (alternative method of entry)

A free entry path offered alongside a paid or purchase-linked one, so a chance promotion does not require consideration. Commonly a mail-in or web form entry. [5] [4]

Equal dignity

The requirement that free AMOE entries carry the same chance of winning as paid entries — same pool, same draw, same deadline, and disclosed where an entrant can actually find it. An AMOE designed to be missed is the failure mode regulators look for. [5] [4]

No purchase necessary

The disclosure that entering a chance promotion requires no purchase or payment. It is a statement about the promotion’s structure, not a magic phrase: if a purchase is in fact required, the words do not cure it. [4] [5]

Official Rules

The binding terms of the promotion: the sponsor’s legal identity, eligibility, start and end dates, how to enter, how winners are determined, prize description and value, and where the promotion is void. Published before entry opens and not changed underneath entrants. [3] [4]

Sponsor

The legal entity running the promotion and answerable for it — named in the Official Rules, and distinct from any platform the promotion runs on. [3]

Void where prohibited

A clause excluding jurisdictions where the promotion would be unlawful. It narrows exposure; it does not make an otherwise unlawful structure lawful in the jurisdictions that remain. [1]

Judging criteria

For a skill contest, the objective standard by which entries are ranked, disclosed before entry. Vague or undisclosed criteria invite the argument that the outcome was really chance. [3]

Tiebreaker

How equal scores are separated. In a skill contest the tiebreak must itself be skill — a coin flip or random pick among tied entrants puts chance back into the outcome. [6] [3]

Game promotion (Florida)

Florida’s statutory term for a contest, game of chance or gift enterprise run in connection with selling consumer products or services. Where total announced prizes exceed $5,000, the operator files rules with FDACS and posts a bond. [7]

Registration and bonding

State filing obligations that attach above a prize-value threshold — for example Florida above $5,000 under § 849.094, and New York above $5,000 under GBL § 369-e. They are compliance steps for a lawful promotion, not a cure for an unlawful one. [7] [8]

Two things this glossary deliberately does not do. It does not tell you which structure is lawful for your facts — that depends on your states, your platforms and your prize value, and is the reason the no-purchase-necessary guide exists. And it does not restate platform rules, which sit on top of the law rather than replacing it; those are in the Instagram guide.

Contest.Zone is a skill contest product: ranking is by score, then by server-measured time, with no random draw at any step. That makes it an example of one structure in this list, not a guarantee about any particular promotion. What that looks like for a brand.