# No Purchase Required **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [March 21, 2006, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-purchase-required/349310 "2006-03-21T17:35:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-purchase-required/349310/1 "2006-03-21T17:35:12Z")
[http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mpurchasetoenter.html](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mpurchasetoenter.html). Great report **Rico**. ---
**Author:** ![Rico](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rico/32/3582_2.png) [@Rico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rico)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-purchase-required/349310/2 "2006-03-21T17:53:53Z")
😃 Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-purchase-required/349310/3 "2006-03-21T19:30:37Z")
About that contest your radio station offered… > [@](#): > > Back in my radio days, we gave away a trip to Hawaii provided by a new sponsor. We met with the sponsor’s representatives and decided to do a “scavenger hunt” type of contest. One of the items required was an empty box of the sponsor’s product. To avoid the “lottery designation” that would produce, the day we announced that particular item on the air, we also announced that anyone wishing to could pick up a free box of the sponsor’s product at the radio station, or simply write the sponsor’s name on a 3x5 card, and include that as part of the final hunt loot. See how that worked? Wouldn’t you have been safe anyway, in that case? Presumably, the first person, or the first n people, to return all of the items were awarded prizes, correct? Wouldn’t that make it entirely a game of skill, rather than luck, so long as you didn’t randomly draw from the valid entries? ---
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2006, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-purchase-required/349310/4 "2006-03-23T00:54:25Z")
Nice report, **Rico**! ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2006, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-purchase-required/349310/5 "2006-03-24T20:28:25Z")
Ditto on the nice report. As to the comment in the question that no one has taken advantage, there is an entire community of contesters, which my wife got involved in when she had a back problem. There was (and no doubt still is) a newsletter giving many contests and their requirements. She won a whole bunch of stuff, mostly minor things like sports bags, through sending in postcards. As far as we could tell, the companies that run these contests do not distinguish between postcard entries and other ones. ---
**Author:** ![BruceB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c2a13f/32.png) [@BruceB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BruceB)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2006, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-purchase-required/349310/6 "2006-03-24T23:13:02Z")
There is a technical detail about this that I’m nearly sure is true. 🙂 No purchase _required_ means that no purchase is required to enter. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you get _an equal_ chance to win without purchasing, just that you have _a_ chance. Suppose 99 people purchase a product to enter a contest, and 100 people take advantage of the no purchase required clause. It is legal to draw 1 name out of the 100 non-purchasers, throw it in with the other 99 who did purchase, and then draw again for the final winner. Technically, someone who didn’t purchase could win this contest, but in practice, a purchaser has a 1% chance of winning, and a non-purchaser has a 0.01% chance of winning -0 quite a difference. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2006, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-purchase-required/349310/7 "2006-03-25T00:14:04Z")
I seem to remember Publishers’ Clearing House getting majorly spanked for that sort of game-playing, just a few years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Gfactor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@Gfactor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gfactor)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2006, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-purchase-required/349310/8 "2006-03-25T15:31:28Z")
> [@John W. Kennedy](#): > > I seem to remember Publishers’ Clearing House getting majorly spanked for that sort of game-playing, just a few years ago. Yup: [http://www.state.ia.us/government/ag/PCH\_settlement\_release\_IA.htm](http://www.state.ia.us/government/ag/PCH_settlement_release_IA.htm) [http://www.directmag.com/news/marketing\_states\_sue\_publishers/index.html](http://www.directmag.com/news/marketing_states_sue_publishers/index.html)