Fortune favors the ones who are willing to try their luck wherever they can! The actual emphasis lays on the trying part. This must have been the moment of epiphany for the ones who invented the lottery system or in today’s context, what you call, Contests or Sweepstakes. You might have witnessed many people eagerly taking part in such contests and desperately hoping that lady luck would smile upon them.

There are plenty of contests and sweepstakes that are organized by various brands or entrepreneurs in a bid to ace the race to the top. A variety of contests are held but people are of the opinion that sweepstakes are not so variant. So, bursting the bubble here, there are various kinds of sweepstake that one can come across, viz, Online sweepstakes, call-in sweepstakes, email sweepstakes, the traditional drop box sweepstake etc. But many a times, there arises a confusion regarding which is which? People often use contests and sweepstakes interchangeably, which is incorrect. So, in order to put your nagging doubts to rest, we can refer to the definitions of each of these word and can draw our own conclusions.

A Contest can be defined as an event where people would compete with each other in certain sport or activity and would be judged on the basis of their skills or how well they performed. On the other hand, a Sweepstake is a kind of competition where the winners are chosen randomly!

The entire concept of contests and sweepstakes originates from the concept of promotions. The promotional activities of various brands are branched out as Contests- the game of skill and Sweepstakes- the game of chance. In a contest, judges would select the ones taking part in the contest if they fulfil the requirements laid down by them. It is more organised and if done right would ensure loyalty of the existing customer and can add new recruits to your customer army!

Sweepstakes on the other hand does not demand any kind of criterias to be fulfilled and the winner is chosen randomly, thus the name- game of chance. Sweepstakes are great when it comes to introducing your product to the general public, you have a dropbox, you draw a card and you have a winner! They generate the required enthusiasm among the audience and hypes the curiosity quotient, thus it strikes a chord, although momentary with the audience.

Thought these two concepts are similar to each other, there is a striking difference between them, so the next time you enter a competition, you can easily bifurcate whether you need to depend on your skills or you have a mutter a short prayer to lady luck under your breath!