The Alternate Method of Entry and the Equal Dignity Rule

By Hank FasthoffJuly 3, 2026

A sweepstakes that lets you enter by buying something is legal only if you can also enter for free. That free option is the alternate method of entry, or AMOE, and no other feature of a promotion carries as much enforcement risk. State attorneys general and private plaintiffs test the AMOE before they test anything else, because without one, a prize + chance + consideration (giving something of value) promotion is a lottery. A sponsor that spends six figures on a giveaway without a proper AMOE has spent that budget promoting an illegal lottery.

A promotion is a lottery when it combines a prize, chance, and consideration. A sweepstakes removes consideration so only prize and chance remain. When a promotion offers entry with a purchase, the AMOE is the mechanism that removes consideration by providing a free method to reach the same prize pool. But a free entry option isn't enough on its own. Courts and regulators treat free entry as effective only when it provides what purchase entry provides, equal entries, equal odds, and equal access to every prize. Practitioners call that principle equal dignity.

What Equal Dignity Requires

Equal dignity puts free entrants and paying entrants in the same position. A promotion fails when purchasers receive five entries per transaction while mail-in entrants are capped at one, when free entries feed a smaller prize pool, or when free entry closes before purchase entry does. Equal dignity also reaches the way a sponsor presents the two methods. A sponsor can't steer participants toward buying, so a campaign that promotes purchase entry prominently while burying the free alternative in fine print may undermine the AMOE even when the underlying mechanics are technically equal.

In Animal Protection Society v. State, 382 S.E.2d 801 (N.C. Ct. App. 1989), North Carolina's appellate court held that the sponsor hadn't removed consideration because non-purchasers received fewer entry forms than customers who paid. That disparity alone supported the holding.

New York's attorney general built a line of enforcement actions on how prominently sponsors disclosed the free method. In a 2004 enforcement action against a Tylenol promotion, print advertising listed entry steps with purchase instructions first and in capital letters, while the no-purchase disclosure appeared in fine print at the bottom. In the attorney general's view, a free method disclosed only in fine print wasn't equally available. In a separate 2004 enforcement action involving CVS, customers who paid with a loyalty card were entered automatically in the store, but free entry existed only on the company's website, so a shopper standing at the register had no equivalent way to enter without buying. Both enforcement actions ended with the sponsors amending their promotions, and both remain reference points practitioners use when reviewing campaign creative.

Disclosure Is Part of the AMOE

Every AMOE appears in official rules, but an AMOE that appears only in official rules and nowhere in advertising fails in practice. Every promotions attorney who has written on this subject reaches the same conclusion, disclose the free method in advertising itself. A participant shouldn't have to click three links deep into a rules document to learn that free entry exists.

For promotions that use the mail, federal law makes disclosure mandatory. Under the Deceptive Mail Prevention and Enforcement Act, sweepstakes mailings must state that no purchase is necessary and that a purchase won't improve the odds of winning, in the mailing, in the rules, and on the entry form, all presented in a way that is "readily noticeable, readable, and understandable" to recipients. For promotions with announced prizes over $5,000, Florida requires official rules to be posted in every retail outlet and included or referenced in advertising copy, and New York requires conspicuous posting of rules, covered geography, and available prizes in every participating outlet and every related advertisement.

Drafting Mechanics That Keep Both Methods Equal

Getting the mechanics wrong is what produces enforcement actions, and most of the risk concentrates in a handful of drafting decisions.

Entry limits must apply identically. If purchase entry allows one entry per day, free entry allows one entry per day. Free and paid entry deadlines must match, and a mail-in AMOE needs special attention here. Set the postmark deadline to coincide with the promotion's end date, with a received-by date falling after it. A mail deadline that expires before online entry closes leaves a window where only paying participants can enter, and that window violates equal dignity.

In Haskell v. Time, Inc., 857 F. Supp. 1392 (E.D. Cal. 1994), the court held that postage is not consideration, so a hand-printed card mailed to a post office box remains a valid AMOE. But it has to be a realistic one. An online promotion that closes 48 hours after launch can't offer mail-in entry as its only free method, because no envelope arrives in time.

A per-message fee for text entry is consideration, and courts disagree on whether an AMOE can remove that consideration, which is why premium-fee text entry has largely disappeared. Whether a standard-rate text message amounts to consideration remains unresolved, so careful sponsors include a free method regardless. Requiring a paid app download is consideration. Requiring a free app download carries low risk, though the burden analysis from social media promotions still applies when a promotion stacks additional requirements on top.

Where the AMOE Can't Remove Consideration

An AMOE removes consideration from a genuine promotion, one that markets a product or service through a giveaway. It does nothing for a gambling product dressed up as a sweepstakes, and courts have drawn that line repeatedly.

In Barber v. Jefferson County Racing Ass'n, 960 So. 2d 599 (Ala. 2006), customers bought cards of Internet time loaded with sweepstakes entries playable on slot-style terminals. Alabama's Supreme Court held that Internet time was incidental to the chance to play, and that free entries couldn't convert the scheme into a lawful sweepstakes any more than an occasional free play could legitimize a slot machine. California's Supreme Court reached the same result for Internet sweepstakes cafes in People ex rel. Green v. Grewal, 61 Cal. 4th 544 (2015), and Michigan and Indiana appellate courts treated discount-card sweepstakes the same way. When participants are paying for the chance to win rather than for a product, a free entry option is a fiction, and courts have said so consistently.

Sweepstakes Casinos and the Unresolved AMOE Question

Sweepstakes casinos sell "gold coin" packages bundled with free "sweeps coins" redeemable for cash prizes, backed by a mail-in or login-based free coin claim. Whether that free coin claim functions as an AMOE is being litigated across multiple jurisdictions right now, and so far none of the outcomes favor operators.

In 2024, a federal judge in Washington held that High 5 Games was running illegal gambling because virtual coins wagered were things of value under Washington law, an analysis that never reached the free coin question. A jury then awarded the player class roughly $24.9 million in early 2025. In June 2025, New York's attorney general announced that 26 sweepstakes casino platforms agreed to stop selling coins in the state, on the theory that the coin model is gambling regardless of any free method of obtaining coins. In July 2025, Louisiana's attorney general issued a written opinion reaching the same conclusion. VGW, the operator behind Chumba Casino, has won its recent Georgia cases on arbitration grounds rather than on the merits.

No court has upheld or rejected a sweepstakes casino AMOE on the merits. Regulators and plaintiffs haven't needed to reach the AMOE question, because they've treated the coin model as gambling on independent grounds. That approach leaves sweepstakes casino operators without a single favorable precedent on the central question their business model depends on, and enforcement is accelerating. Since then legislatures have outpaced the courts, and New York, among other states, has enacted a statutory ban on the model.

What This Means for Ordinary Brand Promotions

A brand running a purchase-entry sweepstakes can comply in four steps. Design the AMOE at the same time you design the promotion. Match entries, odds, prizes, and deadlines between paid and free methods. Disclose the free method in advertising, not just in official rules. Free entry costs almost nothing to administer. A missing AMOE, or one that receives second-class treatment, can convert a marketing budget into litigation exposure, and no promotion justifies that risk.