> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.prizerail.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Winners and eligibility

## Who can enter

Each campaign's official rules set who can enter. The standard Prizerail rules allow:

* **In the US:** legal residents 18 or older, or 19 in Alabama and Nebraska and 21 in Mississippi. Residents of **Florida, New York and Rhode Island** can't enter.
* **Outside the US:** the same age standard. Residents of countries under US sanctions, as listed by the [Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)](https://ofac.treasury.gov/sanctions-programs-and-country-information), can't enter.

Only send entrants who meet them. Your app knows where your users are and how old they are, so checking eligibility before you send someone is the simplest way to keep every draw clean.

> [!NOTE]
>
> These rules come from our legal review and may change. Any change is announced in the [changelog](/changelog).

## Nothing extra to enter

Entering needs no ID check, and nothing changes in your sign-up flow. Your backend sends a pseudonymous id for each user with their number of entries (see [Send entries](/api/send-entries)). That's all Prizerail needs. A display name and avatar are optional. If you send them, they're stored with the entry and shown publicly only if that entrant wins, so send only what you're happy to show. The id stays the same across a campaign's draws, which the [guarantee draw](/api/guarantees) relies on, so it's linkable between draws but not back to the person. Prizerail asks a winner who they are only for the ID check, once their prizes reach \$600 in a calendar year, below.

## Claiming a prize

After a draw settles, Prizerail sends the prizes under your campaign's large-prize threshold to your payout wallet as one USDC transfer, and you pay those winners in your app. Prizes at or above the threshold are held, and sent once they've been checked. A drawing reads `paid` only when every one of its transfers has confirmed. See [Payouts](/getting-started/concepts#payouts) and each drawing's [`payouts`](/api/drawings#fields).

**Today:** Prizerail staff check each prize at or above your campaign's large-prize threshold (`largePrizeThresholdCents`, \$600 for new campaigns unless set otherwise) by hand before sending it. You confirm your other winners are eligible before you pay them.

**Coming soon:** a standard claim step, decided by how much a winner has won in the calendar year. Each winner's prizes are added up from January 1 to December 31, and the step depends on the total, including the prize they're claiming.

| A winner's prizes this calendar year | What will happen before the winner is paid |
| - | - |
| **Under \$600 in total** | Your app asks the winner to confirm they're eligible, with a checkbox: their age, where they live, and that they accept the official rules. Example code will be added here. |
| **\$600 or more in total** | Prizerail gives you a page to send the winner to. It runs a full ID check with Sumsub, our identity provider, covering identity, age and residence. US winners also give their tax details there. The prize that takes them to \$600 or more, and every prize after it that year, is paid once the check passes. A winner checks once a year, not once per prize. |

So someone who wins \$100 seven times in a year confirms with the checkbox for the first five prizes, and goes through the ID check before the sixth, which takes their total to \$600.

> [!NOTE]
>
> The \$600 threshold is set by our legal review for now and is likely to rise. Any change is announced in the [changelog](/changelog).

## Free entry

US sweepstakes law requires a way to enter without buying anything, often called AMOE (alternative method of entry). **Coming soon:** Prizerail will run it for you. Until it's live, talk to us before you launch a campaign. Anyone eligible under the campaign's official rules will be able to enter by mail with a postcard, and Prizerail will add those entrants to the same draw as yours, with nothing for you to build.

* Each postcard will count for the draw taking entries when it arrives, and earn as many entries as the best-earning action in your campaign. For example, if referring a friend earns 10 entries, a postcard earns 10.
* Free entrants will be in the same list, fingerprint and proof as everyone else, so the draw stays verifiable. They'll be in your [entry list](/api/send-entries#checking-what-prizerail-has) too, under an opaque id, and count in [guarantee draws](/api/guarantees) the same way as everyone else.
* Your campaign's official rules will give the mailing address.


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