Monday, September 19, 2016




The Winning Attitude to Sweepstakes - Part 1

by Craig McDaniel, President of Sweepstakes Today LLC


The first part of my story is about how I got started in the hobby of entering contests and sweepstakes. I take you through my early years as a kid where winning things was more compared to finding pirate’s treasure to over 50 years later. The one thing I will share upfront is a winning attitude never ends because you grow older. This is where my story begins.

I have won likely over $100,000 but I keep a dollar less so when I get my next big win, then there will be no question about the amount. After this I get into my thoughts why I have won and about my philosophies in winning. This one dollar to me, represents the time, energy and hard work it has taken.  But on the flip side I can say if I didn’t put the time and effort in, then I wouldn’t have won. There are a several parities I talk about

You may or may not agree with my opinions and I fully understand. I try to focus on equally from what I learned from entering the sweeps myself and many others who taken up “sweeping” as a hobby and their thoughts. However, there are several traits I have found that is in all winners. This is my description.

Going back 30 plus years prior to this when I was a kid, I looked for pop bottle caps with prizes imprinted under the plastic liners. Back in the mid 1960's glass pop bottles could be sold back to the stores for cash. Being 8 years old or so, this was my first job. Then we found that you could nearly make more money from winning prizes from the caps. I was too young and maybe too naïve about thinking looking for bottle caps and prize hunting could be a hobby. As a kid, it was fun to win. My attitude was totally thinking I was going to win. I was too young and dumb to know the difference. In looking back in my early years, we grew up in a time where it was ok to be competitive in sports while in Elementary and Junior High School. Today, there is still competition but it is not sports like baseball or softball or basketball. It has changed to electronic and computer games.

As I got into my teen years and I really forgot about the pop bottle caps wins. I did play poker when I was going to college part time and working full time. I still was as competitive as ever and playing the lunch time poker games turned into something bigger. I started to playing with the big boys a couple of times in the backroom of the local pool hall. When I say big boys, one gentleman, Mr. Bobby Baldwin, turned out to be a world champion in poker. I held my own and won money. I quit playing poker not because it was fun to win cash but I never thought about playing the game for a living. While I was still working at a plant, I won in a drawing a trip to the Indy 500 in 1976. This was a bus trip with 40 other employees, 40 cases of beer and booze. I honestly don't remember the trip final 500 miles of the 650-mile trip to Indy. I do remember Johnny Rutherford winning the race after it was rained out. To say the least, this was worth the memories to this day.

Johnny Rutherford 1976 Winning Indy Car

When I reach 30, I had to have back surgery. Learning to compete with pain was a whole new form of competition I hope no one has to deal with. In one sense you cannot beat physical battle of pain. However, you can win the war with the right attitude. for rehab I walked every day. the more I walked the better I felt. I made walking a competition mainly to stay positive and I wasn't going to let this back rehab beat me. At the same time, there was several call-in sports trivia television shows each week. One was on the local cable channel and the show was call Sports Scene.  Well sports trivia was something I was, to put it mildly, I was better than good, to the point that Sports Scene had to change the rules three times in about 5 months because I was winning so much. I also won on a national TV sport trivia show but it was difficult to call in being nationwide.

In August 1991, I did something I wasn’t sure I could do. That was to quit smoking. Not just quitting, but it was the full cold turkey method and I had not smoked a cigarette since. Considering the number of years, quitting smoking might be one of my greatest wins. People ask me how I did it; the answer is simple. It begins with believing you can. I am currently working on a video and another blog about quitting smoking.

As if fate had a clock, I had my second back surgery 10 years later. I had taken to be a real gym rat and pumping iron. Well I got competitive in this as well. I use to workout with world champion fighter, Mikey Burnett and former New York Jet, Jimbo Elrod with many others. I wasn’t a professional athlete but I did earn respect for being competitive and trying to improve myself.  Then on New Year’s Eve, one too many reps in a back muscle workout did me in. Ouch again.  I knew the drill after surgery and started rehab really before surgery to help what was to come afterwards. At the time, I did play golf and weight lift but had to give that up. I did have a IBM floppy drive computer and a very slow call up internet connection.

After finding the first sweepstakes banner I started to search for more sweeps online.  There was one website back in 1996 and 1997 and I started to enter a lot. This was my new hobby even after going back to work. Actually I wasn't even thinking about entering sweepstakes and was looking at other websites at the time. I saw an online banner about a sweepstakes to enter and that was beginning of my online hobby. 

Winning didn't happen quick and honestly, doubts started to creep in. Maybe I was too dumb to quit but I still kept on entering the sweeps. Then the prizes started to come in. Most were smaller prizes in value but over time, they got bigger. I won a signed poster by U2, a Sony digital camera and then a beautiful Movado ladies watch that went to mom for Christmas.

Toward the end of 1999, I won my first sweepstakes that required an affidavit (commonly referred to as an Affy) prize.  This was for a Hyundai Santa Fe SUV from Cars.com and Hyundai.  Did I believe it? No but I remembered entering this sweepstakes. I got the affidavit and rules page mailed to me and mailed all the documents and notarized. I got a call back from the sweepstakes administrator, Promotions.com telling me I was the official winner.  Receiving the SUV was a problem however.  There was a workers strike in Korea where the SUV was being made. The strike started before the first SUV was off the assembly line. It took 9 months then the local dealer wanted the Santa Fe so Hyundai ended up giving me a check for over $22,000. The wait was a downer but was forgotten after a check was sent.  I mention this because some people give up this hobby for this minor setback.  I didn't.

(The above picture was taken by the Tulsa World Newspaper showing the Hyundai check, the Sony Camera and 61 inch RCA TV I had won.)
 
What might surprise many is even though I was a big winner, I also had maybe 25,000 online entries or more to this point. I know what many of you who have never entered in many sweepstakes will say, I wouldn't take the time to do this. It's ridiculous even for a $22,000 dollar check and a handful of great prizes. This is where you have to have a rock hard attitude about being positive and to flush out all the negative thoughts in your brain.  Yeah, yeah, easier said than done and you hear. But here is another way to view entering 25,000 times.

 My first rule about having a winning attitude:  If you enter, expect to win even if the odds are enormously against you. Picture yourself winning the prize you have entered for. What would it mean to own that prize? How would that prize help you and your family? Do these two questions arouse your imagination? That is the point of expecting to win and to see this wish can come true.

In 2004 when I started Sweepstakestoday.com online, it was a struggle to build because I didn’t just want a good website, I wanted a great website. I personal had years of experience of entering sweeps since 1996. However, I was unhappy with existing sweepstakes websites. It wasn’t that the other websites were all bad, all missed some features that was missing or the quality that meet my standards. This is when I heard from many their attitude about taking the time to enter sweepstakes was different from mine own.

The end of part one of three.



26 comments:

  1. Do you now won from your links? And thanks for making easier for us to enter.

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    1. I don't enter as much. If I get paid by the sponsor, I will not enter. The only exception is to test links or to show sponsor issues. I will enter some which I don't get paid on and even then, I do so to get on their newsletter list.

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    2. Do you get bonus entries for any sweeps when someone clicks on one of your listed sweeps? You know, like the "get 2 bonus entries for every entry through your link" type sweeps? Thanks :)

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    3. I receive no compensation in the form of extra entries. I wouldn't accept this either as a form of compensation. This is not the purpose of the website.

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  2. This is a great story, I have been sweeping myself for 36 years. Have won some great prizes.Thanks to you

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    1. Welcome and thanks for your years of membership on ST.

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  3. I started sweeping in 1999 at first with radio contests. After a little success I started online sweeping. To date my total winnings are $89,560! That said, I have found it much harder to win things in the last three years or so. I suppose this is because there are SO many people online now.

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    1. The difference has been more so from Social Media. The number of people entering is one thing but for the true hobbyist, should improve. The number I am concern with is the value of the GP's, they are much lower than 5 years ago. However the total number of sweeps are higher.

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  4. My biggest win was Ten Thousand dollars and many small prizes. I stopped playing awhile back because I got cancer and just was not up to trying to win prizes. I just started again and won a camera from Royal Caribbean but I did not get an email from them and emailed the people and got no reply. I even sent a letter no reply. Then I called Royal about it and they said to call the company that handles it and I explained I did and they said it was out of their hands. I lost out on a prize but am not going to give up. Thanks Mr Sweepy your site makes my day.

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    1. Lucille, very sorry to hear about the cancer. On Royal Caribbean, how did you find out you won the camera? What evidence do you have? A screen shot maybe or letter in the mail?

      The reason I am asking is if you have something solid about the win, you can go the RC's Public Relation Department and raise the win with them. I have found the PR people take these wins seriously and will help. However you will need to have something to back you case up why you won.

      Mr. Sweepy

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  5. Love it! been doing this for 30 years and still believe I can win...

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  6. I can see where you get your winning ways from Craig. You are quite the competitor. I too love winning, whether at cards, a board game or just solving a puzzle. I have been very fortunate to win many wonderful prizes over the years and give you some credit for running such a great site. Continued success to you. ;)

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  7. I too believe in positive thinking. I started sweeping and started with your site just over a year ago. I have calculated my winnings thus far to be in the region of $8000. I had a 2 month gap when I went to visit my son in England. I do have times where I find it hard to sweep when I have engagements, but I try my hardest to find the time and carry on. I read your article about the odds of winning. I think you mentioned 28,000 to 1, being a median, but then you said something like if you do a 1000 sweepstakes the odds go down to around 28 to 1. My question is a 1000 sweepstakes, is that different ones, or does that include daily ones? Also, have those odds changed since it has become more popular on the net? I remember one of the sweeps I won, was a $500 plane ticket, it was one of those sweeps that you have to visit pages, i.e Twitter, FB, Pininterest. Well I won and this sweep actually showed me how many people entered, I think it was around 11,000. I only visited one page, out of 12 entries I could have done, as I didn't really use Twitter or such then. I 100 percent believe in what you say, you have to picture yourself winning it, believe that you have it and imagine the reaction of your family and friends. When I first started on this road, I told my family and friends and they said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah", probably thinking she will never win, but then the wins came rolling in. I think the first one was a rucksack valued at $10, then it was a voucher for muffins, then a GC for $50. The biggest win was a trip to Ireland, I entered it through my husband, as I had misplaced my green card and knew if I won anything I couldn't give them the id they would require. I have since found it, but yes I won/he won. We are going to travel to Dublin in March for St Patricks/St Paddy's day and my husband is ecstatic that he will get a proper pint of Guinness and be able to see a castle! So I am with you, I whole heartedly believe that it can happen and WILL happen if you stick with it and have faith. Of course this would have never happened if I hadn't stumbled across your site. I also agree other sites aren't as good. Yes there are other sites and yes I do venture there from time to time, but they don't offer half the features that your site does, nor are they so welcoming! Keep up the good work and thank you!

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  8. Shelley, on the math and statistics question, there are a handful of ways to figure out sweepstakes odds. I could come up with many mathematic formulas and each would be right.

    The point I am making is it takes entries to win the big prizes. That's the very simple answer but one many forget.

    However the 28K to one in a year is actuate to make it to the $10K Club is a very actuate number after. I started to look at the number starting in 2007 and we have over 365 $10K Club members. This is why there are so many of the $10K Clubbers who seem to win all the time. Simply they average 25 entries per day and most average over 50 per day on the quality prize sweeps.

    This is why you and people like X win a ton. It's about entries.

    The Yeah, Yeah, Yeah comment some very familiar after all these years... :)

    Thanks,
    Mr. Sweepy

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    1. Thanks Mr Sweepy, Craig, so 25 entries a day does that include daily ones or one only entries? I do enter a lot, not every day, as it can take hours. I stopped using auto fill and the reason why is that, the big prizes like HGTV do not allow it and I realised that if I had auto fill on, which I actually didnt put on it just did it, then when I came to do HGTV sweeps and such it would just carry on and disqualify me.I also realise that the past month I haven't won much, but I am playing catch up as i had a two month break when I went home. It's all about the math/s, it's all about the probability, luck and also a positive attitude. You ARE an inspiration and I am SO eternally grateful for finding your site. Thank you!!!

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    2. Thanks Mr Sweepy, Craig, so 25 entries a day does that include daily ones or one only entries? I do enter a lot, not every day, as it can take hours. I stopped using auto fill and the reason why is that, the big prizes like HGTV do not allow it and I realised that if I had auto fill on, which I actually didnt put on it just did it, then when I came to do HGTV sweeps and such it would just carry on and disqualify me.I also realise that the past month I haven't won much, but I am playing catch up as i had a two month break when I went home. It's all about the math/s, it's all about the probability, luck and also a positive attitude. You ARE an inspiration and I am SO eternally grateful for finding your site. Thank you!!!

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  9. Thanks Mr. Sweepy for this great site!! I lost my job in April after the store I managed for over 15 years closed its doors due to people shopping online, then to make things worse my husband was locked out of his job the next month due to a labor dispute. So I have looked to your site more now than before I find myself getting lost in the day dreaming of winning the big prize. I have been a user for the past 5 years and love it!!! I have only won a water bottle so far, but I definitely can see myself winning big!!! I keep my fingers crossed and visualize the win that I know is finally headed my way!!

    Thanks so Much

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  10. Thank you for the reply. I understand about the hardships and sure you have a feel of this from this article. Stay with it and good things can happen.
    Mr. Sweepy

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  11. Thanks for telling us your story and encouragement. I LOVE your site and use it daily! Thanks Mr. Sweepy! (1sedonafish)

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  12. I've been using this site for a couple of years now and I agree that its the most comprehensive and easiest to use. I love it! Thank you, Mr. Sweepy, for sharing your story and encouragement and also for all of your hard work to make this site possible!

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  13. Very interesting to know the backstory of this website, which I try to use every day. Have won several times, several $100 Visa cards and assorted other things both useful and non-useful, but each win is another incentive to keep on going! My favorite prizes so far are the two Trek bicycles I won for me and my husband. They are fantastic bikes and replace two very old bikes that were still serviceable but didn't have all the bells and whistles, pun intended. I look forward to reading the rest of your blog entries. Thanks for everything!

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  14. I have been with you Mr. Sweepy a long time but I do not remember exactly how long. I had to help quell a fight with an inmate at work a year ago and the inmate rang my bell! I got two concussions and various damage to body parts. My memory is toast, I cannot drive (Do to the fact that in this shape I am afraid I will not control the car right, crash and hurt someone.) dizzy all the time, and have to wear earplugs as if there is too much input into my brain at the same time I get angry and might hurt someone. My Man is the best part of my life. Even though I do not know what I told him 10 minutes ago he will kindly tell me again when I ask again and again. I had been working 12 hour days 5-6 days a week sometimes more and your site was always my relaxation station. So at 67 years old I am now retired and my "MWM" most wonderful man is still working but we are making plans for his retirement too. Your site was always my destressor after work and my excitement when I won no matter how small the prize. It always calmed me down too after dealing with inmates for 12 hours a day and putting 2 hours a day into driving to work and home again. Of course you and I and the Sweepy family have been together longer than my Man and I, but he has taken first place in my heart. Thank you and the Family and now back to the fun!

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  15. I am sorry to hear about what happened to you and the injuries your suffered. Mr. Sweepy and family will always have your back. Good sweeping.

    Mr. Sweepy

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