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Frequently Asked Questions

Below are the basic, easy answer questions and answers. For the real juicy content about this business, read the great articles in the SWEEPTALK section of our site, which address topics such as Letting your customers play from home, Web-based sweepstakes, How sweepstakes companies are paid, and more information about the highly profitable Sweepstakes Totem unit.

Questions

Answers

1 This looks like gambling to me. How is it legal?

In order for an activity to legally be considered "gambling", it needs to have three elements:

  1. Prize
  2. Chance
  3. Consideration

The prize is, of course, something that you win. Sweepstakes have that. The chance means that there is a random element involved. This, too, is a part of any sweepstakes game. Consideration means that the participant pays directly to enter into the game. Here's the catch… when you play the McDonald's Monopoly game, which is a sweepstakes, you don't buy game pieces. You buy a Big Mac with fries or an order of chicken McNuggets. When you buy the food, you get a free entry into the Monopoly game.

This is exactly how sweepstakes gaming works in the Internet cafe business. The customers don't actually purchase entries into the sweepstakes. They purchase time on the computer (Internet time) or, in some cases, long-distance phone time. When they purchase this "product" they are given free entries into the sweepstakes. Instead of placing game pieces on a Monopoly board they go to the sweepstakes gaming systems to reveal whether or not they have won. Simply put, the sweepstakes machines are our Monopoly game and the Internet or phone time is our cheeseburger. This makes it legal.

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2 How much does it cost to open a sweepstakes business?

The total cost to launch a sweepstakes parlor depends on a number of variables. We've opened businesses with only 1 sweepstakes terminal (a Totem) and others with over 200 gaming systems. As you can imagine, the capital to start these two businesses varied tremendously.

How many sweepstakes terminals do you plan to include in your business? Where are you located, and how much are you paying for your lease or your rent? How much buildout or construction is required to prepare the facility for sweepstakes games?

All of these factors play a role in determining the bottom-line startup cost. Startup costs range from as little as three thousand dollars to several hundred thousand dollars. Feel free to give us a call and we'll be able to ask you a few questions and then determine a quick startup cost projection for your Internet cafe franchise.

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3 I heard that the government is about to shut this down.

We've been hearing this every day for years. There will ALWAYS be people sitting on the sidelines afraid to get into the Internet sweepstakes business. Our answer is this… there have been people trying to shut this business down for years. And it's still going. And people that got into it years ago are now sitting under a palm tree on a tropical island somewhere enjoying a Piña Colada.

The point is that computer sweepstakes businesses that are done right and using the best sweepstakes software (that's where we come in) pay themselves off in 3-6 months. Is there some risk? Of course. Every new business venture involves risk. Anyone that tells you otherwise is either confused or is trying to sell you something. However: in spite of legal battles across several different states sweepstakes Internet cafes are still growing strong. Entrepreneurs who are willing to accept that small calculated risk are becoming very, very wealthy. Why not you?

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4 Which are the BEST SWEEPSTAKES GAMES?

We get this question every day. SweepsCoach has been installing Internet cafes for over a decade with a specific emphasis on sweepstakes promotions for nearly 7 years. We have installed, tested, used, and seen the performance of nearly every promotional sweepstakes product on the market. With that in mind, here are a few key guidelines you should watch for.

Key Criteria for Selecting Games:

  1. Are the games web-based? The most robust and powerful sweepstakes games are built upon a web-based platform. This ensures lower costs, easier setup, 100% uptime, instant automatic updates, allows your customers to play the games from home, and can integrate with the highly profitable Sweepstakes Totem units. WARNING: Some of our competitors would like a web-based sweepstakes solution but haven't developed it yet. Some even claim that their product is web-based when it is not. HOW CAN YOU TELL if the games are web-based? One simple way to determine if sweepstakes games are truly web-based is that web-based games allow you to play the games via the web (sounds obvious, huh?) If the games are web-based you should be able to play them right now on your own home computer. Web-based games let you do do THIS (click here to play our games). Non-web-based games will show you pictures of what the games look like. Don't settle for a sweepstakes solution that hasn't upgraded to a web-based server and insists on placing a server in your store!
  2. How long have the games been around? A dangerous pitfall to avoid is hooking up with some new company that just released their games within the last few years. These guys are looking for naive would-be entrepreneurs to beta test their games for them. Pretty pictures of games can be very misleading. Do the games actually play without crashing? How long has the math model for the games been used? There are a few excellent sweepstakes products on the market. None of them have been around for fewer than 4-5 years.
  3. How many unique games are offered? Many of the new entrants to this industry have only developed about a dozen games or fewer. People like VARIETY and so will your customers. Don't settle for a sweepstakes product that doesn't offer at least 40+ games for people to play.
  4. How is the sweepstakes company charging you? Many "Slick Willie" sales reps in this industry are out to make a quick buck from people who are still learning the ropes. Don't let a used car salesman talk you into buying a lemon! Successful sweepstakes platforms make their money "on the back end". This means that as your store generates profit over time, the sweepstakes company that supplied your games makes money. A very common practice in this business is for shady sales reps to push "proprietary" hardware on you and insist that you pay them a significant amount for it. Don't get schooled by this tactic! Any sweepstakes company that wants you to spend tens of thousands of dollars on their "special" computers before you've earned a penny does not have your best interest in mind. On the contrary; your cost should be extremely low up front because a good sweepstakes platform will make money for the sweepstakes company over the long haul. Beware companies that want you to write them a big check up front!
  5. Play the games! It surprises us that we would even need to say this. We get calls all the time from people who are already running sweepstakes Internet cafes that are struggling because they have bad sweepstakes software and the want to switch. When we ask how they selected the poor-performing games we are shocked to find that frequently they didn't even PLAY the games before they spent a fortune on them. Would you buy a car without test driving it? Another huge advantage of a web-based platform is that it allows you to PLAY the GAMES before you buy them.

The point is that there a lot of things to consider when evaluating which Internet cafe sweepstakes games are the best. Selecting the best games is one of the most critical decisions you will make as you launch your business. Choosing the right Internet Café sweepstakes software can catapult your business to success; choosing the wrong one can put you out of business.

So… how do you decide which sweepstakes games are the best for you? If you contact any of the sweepstakes software companies to ask them which is the best they'll all try to sell you their product. Many of them have never even heard of the various sweepstakes products on the market. At SweepsCoach, we have tested, installed, and used just about every sweepstakes game available and made our choice. What you need is a little honest, unbiased, professional advice. What you need is a coach. We know where you can find one!

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5 What about "leasing" systems and splitting everything 50/50?

It's a sad reality of business that the companies that are experiencing the most success are 1) the busiest, and 2) the least likely to offer "special deals" to attract customers.

At SweepsCoach, we have worked with several different sweepstakes gaming companies. We have only partnered with those that have the very best sweepstakes software. Consequently, most of them have customers lining up to buy their products.

On the other hand… the sweepstakes software companies that are struggling to stay in business are much more likely to offer discounted software and special deals. Otherwise they wouldn't have any business!

One of the most common tricks that some sweepstakes software companies or salesmen employ is to try to get you to let them put in their systems and to split everything. In a deal like this you don't pay anything up front for the sweepstakes machines, but you frequently pay as much as 40 or 50% to the sweepstakes company on an ongoing basis. After paying this exorbitant amount to them, you still have to pay rent, payroll, electric bills, Internet connection, insurance… At the end of the day there's nothing left for you.

We tell our clients that this kind of an agreement is similar to buying a car for $10,000. But instead of paying that money up front you don't have to pay anything! Instead you only have to pay $3,000 each month for the rest of your life. What a deal!

We've watched sadly as several people we know entered into this type of an agreement. In almost every case they've ended up with beat-up, used equipment. Then, after 4-6 months of giving huge amounts of money to the leasing company, they realize that they're working to death and the only ones making money are the sweepstakes software providers. That's about the time they throw in the towel. When this happens, the leasing company comes by with a big U-haul and picks up the sweepstakes computers-only to deliver them to the next poor sucker who's foolish enough to sign a 50/50 split agreement.

The one strong exception to this is when you are placing the sweepstakes terminals in a pre-existing business that is NOT only running sweepstakes promotions. An excellent example of this is a bar that wants one or two sweepstakes kiosks (or Totem units). In this case a 50/50 split or even a 60/40 split makes perfect sense because the business is not relying on sweepstakes revenue for its survival.

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6 How is SweepsCoach different from any of these sweepstakes software manufactures?

Good question. At first pass it may appear that SweepsCoach is just a "middle man", sitting between you and the sweepstakes software developers. In fact, nothing could be farther from the truth.

Sweepstakes software companies specialize in one thing… developing sweepstakes games. That's what they do best and frankly-it's all they really want to do. They want to make sweepstakes software and sell it to customers like you.

Here's what they do NOT want to do (and quite honestly… what they're not very good at).

They hate spending time helping you determine which is the best location for your business. They don't like wasting time helping you get the business set up. What are the dimensions for the counters? What are the electrical requirements? How do I need to have the networking done? Can you explain this to my electrician for me? What kind of an Internet connection do I need?

Questions such as these drive the sweepstakes software developers crazy. "Won't the customers just leave us alone so we can make good sweepstakes games?" Another thing they hate to get involved with (but are forced to) is building the hardware. They're not hardware companies; they're software companies. But since their games are so specific, they HAVE to custom build their sweepstakes computers. You can't just run down to Best Buy to purchase PCs and then install the sweepstakes software on them. It just won't work.

The funny thing is… the tasks that the sweepstakes software companies hate to do are the exact tasks that we have been doing for over ten years. We've successfully installed over 300 Internet cafes and sweepstakes gaming center businesses across the US and Internationally. We've helped our clients select locations, held their hand through the buildout phase, sent documents with specifications on how to complete various construction projects, and talked with electricians and Internet service providers to ensure that everything is being done right.

SweepsCoach and its sister company Stuff About Games have been opening Internet Cafe businesses since the late 90s. When we got into the promotional sweepstakes industry we were the only company in this field to even have a website! Since then dozens of less-experienced upstarts have jumped into the fray. SweepsCoach has the experience you can trust.

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7 What's the difference between a Web-Based sweepstakes solution and the older, Client-Server model?

All sweepstakes games require a "game server", which is essentially "the brain" of the system. The Client-Server system requires that this highly technical, very expensive server be located onsite (in your store). However; in the past 10 years most high-tech companies have evolved and improved their technology by moving that server offsite. This Web-Based solution is not easy to develop--which is why there is only ONE sweepstakes platform in existence that has been able to successfully implement it; the PromoTek Sweepstakes gaming platform. The developers of these games were able to achieve this technological breakthrough because they have been designing sweepstakes games since before the year 2,000, while no other sweepstakes product in the US has been in business for even half as long.

Read this article for details, but suffice it to say that the Web-Based sweepstakes solution is less expensive, more powerful, allows immediate automatic updates, enables your customers to play from home if you choose (this is a huge money-maker, by the way), and allows you to check the performance of your business real-time from any web-enabled device (phone, iPad, computer...)

Both the Web-based sweepstakes solution and the older Client-Server system have a "finite pool" that is unique to the business or location. This means that your business has its own set of winners and losers and doesn't share the prize pool with any other locations. Both models accomplish the same thing--one just does it a lot better (and cheaper) than the other. Ten years ago a Client-Server system would have been fine--but times have changed and business owners demand the best! Don't settle for old technology; Web-Based sweepstakes are the way to go!

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8 How much does SweepsCoach charge me for all this help?

We almost left out the best part… you don't pay us anything for our services. Our sweepstakes software partners are so excited that we're bringing them qualified, prepared customers that THEY pay us to do it.

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