legal rules for running your own sweepstakes/raffle?

[Train]

I own a running website and am thinking of giving away a free something (pair of shoes, sports watch, etc, havent decided yet) to someone who comes to my site and enters a code they got as a handout. I basically want to give a huge stack of cards to about 20 running stores in my state, each with an alphanumeric code, kinda like the ones you see sometimes on soda pop caps or candy wrappers. 1 or more of these codes will be randomly selected to be a winner, when people go to my site an enter the code, i soak up a little demographic information, politley allow them the option of joining my newsletter, then the site tells them if they won or not. The stores will be instructed to hand out a card with each purchase (they will be compensated by the # of cards entered that were handed out by that store)

My question is, is this considered gambling? Do I have to allow people to get a "gamepiece" WITHOUT purchasing something to make it legal? Do i have to get some kind of clearence in my state (Ohio) to do this?

 

[kranky]

First, I am not a lawyer, but this is my understanding of how those things work.

If you require a purchase to enter, that's a "lottery" which is bad. You should make it possible for people to get a card without buying something. That would keep it out of the gambling arena. You can do that by either letting people pick up a card at a store without a purchase, or letting them request one by mail.

Just look at the "official rules" for any sweepstakes. They are usually very similar. They say who is eligible, the approximate odds of winning, the start and end dates, who is running it, who the "official judges" are, how you claim a prize, how to get an entry without buying something, and how to request a list of winners. I have no idea if all of those things are required, but I tend to see them in just about every list of rules.

There are tons of examples of contest rules on Google.

If I was doing it, I would do my research carefully and just run the promotion without a lawyer. I have no idea if you have to register something like that with the state of Ohio.

 

[MrBond]

How about just doing it like the big companies do. Take that pepsi billion dollar sweepstakes. You get a code under the cap of a bottle, which you then enter on their website (very similar to what you're doing). In the fine print, there's "no purchase nessecary, write here for a free game piece".

A small contest shouldn't get you into trouble, you're not profiting from it.