PA Lottery will be celebrating the holidays with a generous new giveaway promotion.
The $100,000 Holiday Countdown is a bonus promotion in which a prize drawing will be held every Friday from December 7 to January 4. Each week there will be a grand prize winner receiving a $10,000 prize, and an additional hundred other winners each receiving a $100 prize.
Bigger deposits, more entries
Entries are earned through deposits and standard activity. Each day you make a deposit of at least $25 and play through it at least once on the same day yields one entry into the Friday drawing. Depositing and betting at least $50 will bump that up to three entries, and $100 or more will result in eight entries. Repeating for emphasis: players must play through the minimum amount on the same day as their deposit.
Notice that by depositing and playing through $100, players will earn 8x as many entries as a player who deposited and ran through $25, clearly indicating that there is more bang-for-the-buck in making a larger upfront investment. It’s also nice that the number of daily entries are capped at eight, granting casual players a fair shake against more hardcore wagerers.
Note, the promotion must also be claimed in order for entries to be awarded, simply making the deposit and playing will not enter you into the drawing if you have not activated the option, and the claim must be made again each week you wish to participate.
Good news is, opting in is as simple as navigating to your “My Bonuses” page, and claiming the $100,000 Holiday Countdown Bonus. New players can also enjoy $5 free and 100% up to $100 on their first deposit.
Value
As is the case with most sweepstakes promotion, the odds of any one individual lottery player winning are not great, especially considering Pennsylvania’s population, which is right around 13 million residents. But despite this, the Holiday Countdown should still be seen as a positive value, with 101 players receiving an extra bonus each week, at a time of year where gifts are a big focus.
Extremely noteworthy is the fact that activity required to earn drawing entries appears to be compatible with the usual Pennsylvania iLottery Daily Promotions. Each day of the week the online lottery offers a different bonus, most days this takes the form of a 20-25% cashback bonus on net losses (on a particular specified game for that day). Usually the only requirement to qualify for the loss return is a $25 deposit, which is already satisfied as the minimum to unlock the sweepstakes entries.
Final analysis
While not a massive value, the Holiday Countdown will be a nice extra bonus for hundreds of players (and significantly more generous than holiday promotions of other high-profile online lotteries).
Entry periods for the giveaway are from midnight on Wednesdays to the following Tuesday, with winners announced on Fridays. At the time of this writing the first drawing is closed but there is still time to get entries for week 2 and beyond.
