Oodles of FREE opportunities to win cash!!

Today’s post focuses on instant win games & sweepstakes hosted by our lovely free-to-win sites! (Click “Game Sites” in the menu bar to see the full list.) Some of the sites also offer progressive jackpots that you can win by playing their games, but that isn’t what we’re dealing with here. These are all instant win games or sweeps that run all year long!

 

The info is organized into handy-dandy tables, complete with direct links to the games so you don’t have to dig to find them. And yes, the links will pop up in a new window, so you can enter and come right back here to enter the next thing. ^_^ (Note: If you aren’t currently logged in to that site, you’ll need to log in before you can do much of anything.)

 

Not sure what to do with this info? Here are a few suggestions on what you could do.

1. Use the tables as a checklist – Maximize your odds of winning by completing the Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly, and Random Drawing tables.
2. Improve your efficiency – If you want to focus solely on the biggest prizes or find out where you have the best chance of winning, we have tables for you too!
3. Make sure you aren’t missing anything! – Most sites only have a handful of games or sweeps, but IWON, Gamesville and Spigo all have a LOT of ways to win things! 

 

IMPORTANT!!!

 

 

If you live in the United States then you can enter all of the games/sweeps/drawings listed on this page. If you live elsewhere, please consult this list first to find out which sites you can win on! (Link opens in a new window.)

 

Once you do that come back here and figure out what applies to you. ^_^

 

 

Contents

• Daily Shtuff – Sweeps, games, scratchcards and more that you can enter each day.
• Weekly Sweeps – A new drawing occurs each week. Prizes range from $100 to $500.
• Monthly Sweeps – A new drawing occurs each month. Prizes range from $25 to $1,000!
• Yearly Sweeps – Only one sweeps, but it has a HUGE prize!
• Random Drawing – Sometimes there isn’t a deadline!
• Top Prizes – Thirteen prizes ranging from $500 to $1,000,000!
• Best Chance to Win – Find out where you have the best chance to win something! (Note: You are never guaranteed to win. It sucks, but that’s reality!)

 

Daily Shtuff

These are games, scratchcards, and sweeps that you can do every day! FreeSlots is the odd one because technically it’s a monthly sweeps program. But since you can only submit 10 tickets a day, it’s better to make it part of your daily routine.

 

Some of the games have multiple prizes and/or winners. Please note that if you win, you’ll only get one of the prizes!! You don’t get the whole list. ^_^

 

Entries are organized alphabetically by site name. Clicking a game link will open up a new window so you can take care of business. Clicking a site name will take you to the Free2WinGames’ review of that site, so you can learn more about it.

 

Game	Site	Virtual Prize	Real-World Prize
Monthly Sweeps (Limited to 10 tickets per day)	FreeSlots		Ten $250 prizes Five $500 prizes (15 winners total)
Daily Sweeps	Gamesville		$25
Frantic Fish	Gamesville		$25
Hot Streak Solitaire	Gamesville		$10
Pit Stop Slots	Gamesville		$25
Super Chef Full Boil (Facebook App)	Gamesville		$10
BINGO Blitz*	GSN Oodles	5-10,000 Oodles	+$1,000 for each day w/o a BINGO winner (Ex: 6 days w/o a winner means a JP of $6,000!)
Daily Trivia*	GSN Oodles	25-60 Oodles
Daily Sweeps	GSN Oodles		$250
Weekly Sweeps	GSN Oodles		$1,000
Daily Sweeps	IWON		$100
Pick 7*	IWON		$100 $1,000 $1,000,000
Prize Machine (20 spins)	IWON	500 coins +5 spins	$5-$10 IWON water bottle iPhone 3GS Wii $500
Spin2Win	IWON	100-1000 coins +5 spins	IWON T-shirt $25-$1,000
4 Green Gems for any Game	KadoKado	Kado Points (earned from games)
Daily Drawing*	Pogo		Two $25 prizes One $50 prize (Three winners)
Daily Sweeps	Slingo		$50 prize (Two winners)
Bingo Scratch*	Spigo	500-25,000 Spigos
Diamond Hunt*	Spigo	50-5,000 Spigos
Jackpot Scratch	Spigo	1,000-20,000 Spigos	Cash Jackpot Max of $200
Quick Scratchcard*	Spigo	50-1000 Spigos	Cash Jackpot Max of $200
Super Jackpot	Spigo	1,000-2,5000 Spigos	Spigo Merchandise Super Jackpot (currently at $52k)
Zodiac Signs*	Spigo	(Split with partner) 500-25,000 Spigos	(Split with partner) $20, $50, $100

*Game does not require tokens or extended play. In other words, these are quick and easy!

Back to the top.

 

Weekly Sweepstakes

Clicking the prize will open a new window for the relevant sweeps. Clicking the site name will take you to the Free2WinGames’ review of the site, so you can learn more about it if it’s a new one for ya. ^_^

 

Entries are arranged by… Well, since there are only four entries, I hope that you don’t need a lot of help with this one.

 

Prize	Site
$100 Sweeps	Gamesville
$500 Sweeps	IWON
$200 Sweeps	Slingo
Slingo Merchandise Sweeps	Slingo

Back to the top. 

 

Monthly Sweepstakes

Clicking the prize will open up a new window for the relevant sweeps. Clicking the site name will take you to the Free2WinGames’ review of the site, so you can learn a little more about it.

 

Entries are arranged alphabetically by site name.

 

Prize	Site
$25 Amazon certificate (four winners)	BugleGames
$25-$250 giftcards	Candystand
Varies. Prize valued between $400-$1,000	Gamesville
$1,000 sweeps	IWON
$1,000 sweeps (three winners)	Slingo

Back to the top. 

 

Yearly Sweepstakes

Super short list! ^_^ I really had to dig in to figure out why IWON lists the prize as “up to $1,000,000!” It turns out that if you win, there’s a second drawing to find out what your prize is. You have a 99 in 100 chance of winning $100,000 and a 1 in 100 chance of winning $1,000,000.

 

Even at $100,000 it’s still the biggest free-to-win prize that I’ve found, but I dislike the slightly deceptive wording on the site. But anywho, if you want to enter, click the “Sweeps” link below!

 

Method	Site	Prize
Sweeps	IWON	$100,000 OR  $1,000,000

Back to the top. 

 

Random Drawing

Playtopia is the only contender in this category. Instead of having sweeps, they just have random drawings. You can also schedule it to buy tickets for you, which is interesting. I imagine it’s a good way to keep from missing out on a new drawing!

Clicking the game name will take you to the Playtopia ticket shop, where you buy *drumroll* tickets. ^_^

Quick Jackpot (Blue Tickets)	Playtopia	$10-$30
Extra Jackpot (Red Tickets)	Playtopia	$30-$100
Super Jackpot (Green Tickets)	Playtopia	No max $9,195 as of 1/12/11

Back to the top.

 

Top Prizes

If you’re looking for the biggest free-to-win prizes around, this is the table for you! All of these prizes are valued at $500 or more.

When you’re looking at the prizes also look to see how often winners are picked. The time frames have a huge variety! For example, a $1000 prize might be awarded daily, weekly, monthly, or totally at random, depending on which site you visit!

Entries are organized by prize value, with the highest value prize listed at the top.

Top Prize	Game	Site	Winner Picked
$1,000,000	Annual Sweeps	IWON	Once a year
$1,000,000	Pick 7	IWON	Daily
Varies $52,000 as of 1/12/11	Super Jackpot	Spigo	Random draw OR Super Jackpot Slots
Varies $9,195 as of 1/12/11	Super Jackpot	Playtopia	Random draw
$1,000 or more	BINGO Blitz	GSN Oodles	Daily
$1,000	Weekly Sweeps	GSN Oodles	Weekly
$1,000 (three winners)	Monthly Sweeps	Slingo	Monthly
$1,000	Monthly Sweeps	IWON	Monthly
$1,000	Monthly Sweeps	Gamesville	Monthly
$1,000	Spin2Win	IWON	Random
$500	Monthly Sweeps	FreeSlots	Monthly
$500	Weekly Sweeps	IWON	Weekly
$500	Prize Machine	IWON	Random

Back to the top.

 

Best Chance to Win

To figure out where you have the best chance to win a prize, I combined two aspects: website traffic and how often a winner is picked. (Traffic stats are from November 2010.)

You always have better odds with sweeps that end quickly, because people don’t have as much time to enter them. And you have better odds on smaller sites, because you have less competition overall.

Think of it this way. Slingo got 360k unique visitors in November, and they gave out 60 daily prizes in that time.

60 daily prizes / 360k visitors = 1 daily prize / 6k visitors

also known as

1 daily prize per 6,000 visitors

This sorta gives you an idea of how many people are competing for one prize. However, since we’re dealing with sweeps here, these are not the actual odds of winning!!!

The actual odds are determined by how many tickets are purchased. So! Even though I can’t give you the exact odds, I can give you an idea of how much competition you’re up against.

The Gamesville games with a single winner each day have been lumped into a daily sweeps category. The games are linked individually, of course!

Site	Game	Prize	Prize per monthly Visitors
BugleGames	Monthly Sweeps	$25 Amazon certificates	1 per 500
Gamesville	Daily Sweeps Frantic Fish Hot Streak Solitaire Pit Stop Slots Super Chef Full Boil	$10 (SCFB & HSS) $25 (DS, FF & PSS)	1 per 2,240
Slingo	Daily Sweeps	$50	1 per 6,000
FreeSlots	Monthly Sweeps	$250-$500	1 per 40,500
GSN Oodles	Daily Sweeps	$250	1 per 67,000
Gamesville	Weekly Sweeps	$100	1 per 84,000
Slingo	Weekly Sweeps Merchandise Sweeps	$200	1 per 90,000
Slingo	Monthly Sweeps	$1,000	1 per 120,000

Back to the top.

That’s everything! I’m going to bookmark this page in the wibiya toolbar, so I can go through my daily shtuff quicker. ^_^

 

Find a dead link or a free-to-win sweeps game that I missed? Leave a comment and I’ll check it out. Thanks!

Disqus for Dummies part 4 – More tools!

Welcome to the final chapter in our Disqus for Dummies series! Here are the links for the previous sections, just in cased you missed them.

• Part 1 – How to make an account.
• Part 2 – How to leave a comment.
• Part 3 – Tools.

Still with me? Great! ^_^ First off, this post uses lots of pictures. If you’re having trouble seeing any of them, click on the picture to see the full size version of it. It will open in a new window and you won’t lose your place!

The tools we’ll cover today are very useful, but you can totally ignore them and be just fine. However, I must confess that before I started writing this series I really had to dig into Disqus. And although the tools mentioned today aren’t essential, I’ve really enjoyed using them to make sure I’m not missing any comments!

I’m jumping too far ahead. Start by logging in to your Disqus profile. Ready now? Let’s go!

 

My Activity: Comments

As soon as you log in you’ll pop up in the Comments section in the My Activity tab. Here you’ll see all of the comments you’ve made!

Let’s take a closer look at a single comment.

There is a lot of information here, and most of the time you won’t need to bother with it. But here’s what everything is, starting from the upper left corner and going clockwise.

1. Upper left corner – Thread/post title. Links back to the post.
2. Upper right corner – How long ago you made the comment.
3. Lower right corner – Link back to the homepage of the site you commented on.
4. Lower left corner – Buttons galore! (Will explain in a moment.)
5. Middle – Your comment!

The buttons are extremely useful! If you hit “Reply” a little text box will pop up below your comment.

You can write and post a reply right there! But remember, right now you’re only looking at your comments. Instead of replying to your own comment, why not edit it instead?

Now you can edit your comment! This is PERFECT for those times you spy a spelling error too late, or see that you typed “windmile” instead of “windmill.” Not that that ever happens to me! No not at all. *^_^*

The Delete button is a little different. Basically when you delete a comment you’re saying, “I didn’t write that!” and it will have an anonymous author. If you said something you didn’t mean, edit the comment and remove the offensive content.

There isn’t a confirm screen when you hit delete. HOWEVER, there IS an undo button! It will be right under the comment you deleted, and if clicked it will immediately make it “your” comment again. ^_^

Now the button I think is really fun is Context. If your comment is a reply to someone else, then clicking Context will show you what you were replying to!

This is great for those times when you can’t remember why on earth you said “I like bananas!” in a comment. ^_^

 

My Activity: Replies

Let’s move on to the next page in My Activity: Replies! These are all of the replies left on your comments!

This is a great way to make sure you aren’t missing anything! If you go on a commenting spree and post on a bunch of threads at once, you can check your “Replies” page instead of visiting each thread one at a time. ^_^ WOOHOO for usefulness!

If you see a comment you want to reply to, just hit the Reply button!

You can post your reply without ever leaving the page! If you’re not sure which brilliant comment of yours the person replied to, hit Context!

The highlighted comment is the original reply that we were looking at. ^_^

Got all of that? Great! Let’s move on to the last part.

 

My Activity: Subscriptions

Whenever you visit someone’s profile page, you’ll see something like this:

See that button in the top right corner? If you like this person you can subscribe to their comments! To see your subscriptions, head back to your My Activity page and click on the Subscriptions section.

Now you can keep up with your friends and not miss a thing that they say!

That concludes the Disqus for Dummies series. As always, you’re welcome to leave comments here to test out the various tools. It’s okay! And if you have any further questions, please leave a comment and I’ll try to help. ^_^

Disqus for Dummies part 3 – Tools.

You’ve learned the basics and know how to make an account and leave a comment. If you missed those posts just click on the links and go read them. ^_^

Anywho, there’s a lot more that you can do in Disqus! We’ll start at the top of the commenting section and work our way down.

 

1: Community Box

The first thing I’d like to show you is the Community Box. It’s a little icon that you might not have noticed before!

See the icon with two people side-by-side? Click that and voila! A brief summary of the Free2WinGames community!

Here you can see the total comments since we switched to Disqus, how many likes, how many people have commented (that part appears to be broken at the moment,) who’s active, who’s liked, and who’s new!

The “New Faces” part appears to just track Disqus members. If someone comments through Facebook connect, they won’t appear in this section. Darn. :(

No matter what, it’s still a pretty neat snapshot of who’s who! ^_^

 

2: Sorting Comments

By default, all comments appear with the oldest comments first and the newest comments last. This means when you read them everything is in sequential order, like reading a book.

If you want to switch things around you have a few options!

Here’s what each item means:

• Popular now – Comments that were “liked” recently are at the top.
• Best rating – Comments are sorted from most to least “liked.”
• Newest first – Newest comments are at the top. Oldest comments are at the bottom.
• Oldest first – Did you forget already? Well the oldest comments are first, and the newest comments are at the bottom.

If you’ve been away for a while, switching to “Newest first” will show you missed. On the other hand, if there are dozens of comments and you don’t want to read them all, sorting by “Popular now” or “Best rating” will highlight the most useful comments.

    

3: Collapse Thread

If you move your cursor to the upper right corner of any comment, a little button will appear.

It looks like a minus sign. If you click it then that comment and ALL of the replies to it will “collapse.”

Think of it like folding a row of chairs so they take up less space. If you want to see the comments again just click on the plus sign!

Collapsing comments (for some reason that makes me think of “fainting goats”) is perfect for when a topic derails and suddenly there’s a lively discussion about cheese. If you want to share your opinion on the merits of Gouda versus Swiss you can dive right in. But if really you just want to read tips on how to get 100,000+ points in Kanji’s Adventure, hit the minus button to fold the cheesy comments away.

 

4: Reply

At the bottom of every comment there are two buttons: like & reply. We’ll cover “like” in a little bit, so for now just focus on “reply.” ^_^

When you click on reply a text box will open up, and you can write your comment. (If you aren’t logged in it will give you the chance to do so. No worries!)

Once you’ve finished your witty reply, hit post and you’re done!

If you look closely you’ll notice that my reply is indented to the right, and it says “in reply to Mira.” These clues tell other readers that your comment is a reply to something else.

In the particular example I provided, well, it isn’t a big deal. *^_^* But generally, if you’re replying to something specific, use the “reply” button below the comment. If you don’t do that, your comment will appear at the very bottom, and people will have no idea why you just said, “I love Limburger!”

 

5. Like

Technically there are two different things you can “like.” One of the buttons above the comments lets you like the entire post.

If you change your mind later you can hit the thumbs down icon. I prefer thumbs up, of course. ^_^

You can also “like” individual comments.

Clicking this button means that, well, you like what that person said!

No matter how much you love what someone said, you can only “like” hir comment one time. If you change your mind later just click the “liked” button to undo it!

When should you “like” something? Well, that’s completely up to you! I tend to “like” comments a lot, because I’m thankful that people take the time to say something. ^_^ You might want to “like” a comment because it made you smile or you learned something new.

The only time it’s not a great idea to “like” a comment is when someone says something like, “Today my kitten died. :( “ In that case just comfort hir in a reply. Zie may interpret any “likes” to mean that people are glad hir kitten died! Ack!

 

6. Flag

Whenever you mouse over a comment you’ll see a little link appear in the bottom left corner of it.

If you click on it then this message box will pop up:

I read every comment posted on Free2WinGames, but I’m not online 24/7. If you see a comment that advertises for another site or insults another reader, please flag it! As soon as I’m back online I’ll have an alert telling me to go check that comment.

Here are a few examples to show you what’s okay and what isn’t okay.

1. “Eh, BugleGames is alright, but I really prefer KadoKado.” – Okay
2. “Looking for fun and adventure? Try www.probablyabadsite.com!” – NOT okay!

Disagreements:

1. “I completely disagree with you. A good offense is useless without a good defense!” - Okay
2. “Ugh. I totally can’t stand that game. Only an idiot would like it.” – Not really okay, but I’d probably let it slide.
3. “Clearly you’re a moron. I’m amazed that you remember to breathe.” – NOT okay!

I’m going to derail a tiny bit and explain why I don’t allow insults here. For starters, I want this to be a friendly place that welcomes all types of people. “But Mira!,” you might say. “What about the people who like to insult others? Shouldn’t they feel welcome too?”

They ARE welcome, so long as they play nicely with everyone else. ^_^

As for playful insults, well, they get little bit of leeway. Just remember that other people might not realize you’re joking. Text is wonderful, but you can’t read body language or tone of voice here. It’s probably best to keep playful insults private, via email or something similar.

That covers all of the current Disqus features on Free2WinGames. ^_^ Tomorrow we’ll cover how to sort your own comments. (Exciting, I know!)

Feel free to use any of the “Disqus for Dummies” threads as a testing ground. You’re welcome to comment, reply, and test anything else here. Just uh, please don’t test the flag button. It works, I promise!

Disqus for Dummies part 2 – How to leave a comment.

Welcome back! Yesterday you learned how to make a Disqus account and customize your settings. (Missed yesterday’s post? Click here to read it!) Now that you’ve registered for Disqus, here’s how you leave a comment on Free2WinGames!  For the purpose of this exercise we’re going to assume that you aren’t currently logged into Disqus.

Okay! You just finished reading another brilliant article by yours truly and you want to leave a comment. Now what?

Scroll to the bottom of the page past the previous comments until you see this:

If instead you see something like this:

Then you’re already logged in. ^_^ Keep reading anyway so you know what to do when you’re not logged in!

You can log in before you leave a comment, or you can log in when you decide to post the comment. If you decide to log in before writing your comment, click the Disqus button. (The other buttons are for non-Disqus users who are just stopping by.) Once you click “Disqus” a little window will pop up.

Enter your Disqus username and password here. If you’ve forgotten your username you can use the email that you signed up with. (Later you can return to your Disqus profile to find your username again.)

Once you’re logged in you can make your comment and off you go!

Alternately, you can write a comment and then log in. Write what you want to say and click the “Post as” button.

A window will pop up with all of the sign-in options.

The default option is “Guest.” You don’t want that. ^_^ You want to click the Disqus tab!

From here you put in your Disqus username or the email you signed up with. As soon as you hit “Login” your comment will immediately publish!

If you spy an “oops” in your comment, click the Edit button to fix it! This is another HUGE plus of using Disqus! ^_^

You’ll stay logged in until you click the “logout” button OR until your cookies clear.

IMPORTANT #1: If you’re using a public computer OR you share a computer at home, LOG OUT before you leave!

IMPORTANT #2: If you’re replying to a specific comment, hit the button that says “Reply” right by the comment. This makes it easier for people to follow the conversation.

And that’s it! Check back tomorrow to learn about some neat features that you can use. Feel free to use the “Disqus for Dummies” series as a testing ground. Leave comments! Explore! The world is your oyster!!

Wait… that’s actually really nasty. Nevermind. >_<

Disqus for Dummies part 1 - Making an account.

If you plan on joining Points4Prizes (and I hope you do!) you’ll need to make a Disqus account. With Disqus I can count your comments and make sure no one is pretending to be you! (And there are moderation features, so if anyone nasty comes around I can give them the boot!)

So! Over the next few days I’ll be sharing some posts to help you learn how to use Disqus. It’s really not that hard, but I want every reader to feel confident that they can handle it. ^_^

In this series you can click on any picture to see the full-size version! The picture will pop up in a new window so you won’t lose your place. (I hate it when that happens!) Now, are you ready to get started?

 

Step 1: Go to http://www.Disqus.com/profile

It’s easy to get started! Pick a username that you’ll remember, an email address that you use, and a password.

IMPORTANT: The username is what sets you apart from all of the other Disqus members. When filling out the Points4Prizes form, your Disqus username is what I need!

 

Step 2: Set up Connections

This is the first page you’ll see as soon as you make your account. Notice that your username is in the upper right corner! It’ll say your name and not MiraHope, of course. ^_^

The connections page lets you tie your Disqus account to other social media. It’s all optional!

IMPORTANT: Whatever you connect with is going to be available for everyone to see. When you make a comment, people can click on your avatar and see what social media you’re connected to. This is a great way for people to connect with you outside of Free2WinGames, but if you’re a private person this might not be a great idea for you.

 

Step 3: Pick a picture!

The next page is for your avatar.

Here you have a few options!

• Upload a picture from your computer.
• Upload a picture from a website.
• Use the default picture for whatever site you comment on. (On Free2WinGames it’s a daisy.)
• Use a picture from a site you’re connected too. (In my case it’s Facebook & Twitter. I just happen to use the same icon for everything. *^_^*)

Avatars aren’t crucial, but they can be fun. Send me a message if you need more help figuring out how to get an avatar!

 

Step 4: Set up Public Information

The next page is your Public Info. This is where you can customize your display name.

Your display name is what everyone else sees when you leave a comment. Your username will not change!

As you can see, my username is still MiraHope, but my display name is Mira. If you add a website then your display name becomes a link to that site. Don’t have a website? Then don’t worry about it. You can leave it blank. ^_^

IMPORTANT: When you fill out the Points4Prizes form, please please PLEASE remember to give me your Disqus username and NOT your display name!

Step 5: Check Account Info (If you want to.)

The last page is your account info.

On this page you can change your username, email address, and more. The red arrow is to point out (yet again) that your username will be in the top right corner. ^_^

Honestly, you shouldn’t need to change your username. If you get bored just change your display name!

Tomorrow I’ll go over how to leave a comment. If you want to go ahead and try it yourself, have at! You’re free to use the “Disqus for Dummies” series as a testing ground to become familiar with Disqus. You can check out the buttons, ask questions, or just leave a comment. It’s up to you! ^_^

Who can win?

Whenever I sign up for a new game I make sure that I can legally play it first. ^_^ This means that ALL of the games I review are okay for US players and adults.

But I’m also blessed to have many friends in all age groups and various nationalities, and it’s always frustrating to try and figure out what games they can play too. So I made a handy reference chart!

This chart covers region, age limits, and membership options. Later I’ll make a chart to compare prizes. That should be fun. ^_^

Here’s what each category in THIS chart means.

Site Name - The game site names link to a site review of them, so you can learn a bit more before you sign up.

Region – These are the areas eligible for prizes. Two key things to remember:

1. “USA” excludes Puerto Rico
2. “Canada” excludes Quebec

I personally have nothing against either area, but just know that if a site lists “Canada” as a region and you live in Quebec, you’re ineligible to win. If it says “International” then you’re good. ^_^

Also, if “International” is linked, it takes you to either a list of the eligible countries or a list of sites in different languages. They’re all run by the same company!

Age limit – You must be the limit age or older in order to play.

Membership – Everything has a free option, of course. I just listed it for new people who might stumble in and not *get* that Free2WinGames.com is all about free sites. ^_^

In regards to the paid member options, keep in mind that I rounded up. I’ve always hated it when people sell things for x dollars and 99 cents. It’s like they think I’m too dumb to realize that $4.99 is pretty much $5. Geez. >_<

Anywho! Winster uses monthly subscriptions instead of yearly, so technically you don’t have to pay a year’s worth. But I wanted you to have an easy comparison. That’s why I listed everything by price per year.

IMPORTANT: Some sites allow you to play and/or pay for membership even though you live in an area where you can’t win.

Site Name	Region	Age limit	Membership
BugleGames	USA Canada	18+	Free
Candystand	USA Canada	13+	Free
Club Bing	USA	Varies*	Free
FreeSlots	USA International	18+	Free
Gamesville	USA Canada UK	18+	Free Gold $25/yr
GSN Oodles	USA Canada	18+	Free
IWON	USA Canada	13+	Free
KadoKado	International	No limit	Free**
Playtopia	International	No limit	Free***
Pogo	USA Canada	No limit	Free Club Pogo $40/yr
Slingo	USA Canada	13+ to play 18+ to win	Free
Spigo	International	No limit	Free Gold $50/yr
Winster	International	18+	Free Basic $60/yr Silver $90/yr Gold $120/yr

*Some Club Bing prizes have age restrictions.

**Each day players get 4 free Green Gems at KadoKado. You can buy more game plays in the form of Orange Gems which never expire. Price varies depending on the package and the current exchange rate.

***Currently Playtopia is free, but its sister sites have paid VIP options. It’s likely that Playtopia will eventually add a paid membership option.

And that’s that! ^_^

The Sunday Reader - Issue 4: Understanding Odds

Odds are a hot topic in Gamesville blog posts. They can be a bit confusing, so I decided to try and explain some of this stuff. Keep in mind that I majored in English, not math. If you see any boo-boos please let me know! ^_^

The first thing to remember is that odds are very useful for large groups, but are practically meaningless for individuals. Seriously!

Perhaps you've heard (or said) this before. "I've played for YEARS and not won anything! Yet this new person played for only a few months before she won something. It has to be rigged!"

This type of thinking implies that odds function like a countdown, and it's a very common misconception! It seems logical that someone playing for a long time would win before someone who just started. But odds just don't work that way.

Let's look at some real-world odds for perspective. Did you know that the odds of having an ER worthy accident with a drinking fountain in any year is 1 in 220,700?

If odds worked as a countdown, you'd have to use a drinking fountain 605 times a day for a year in order to "trigger" an accident on your 220,700th visit. That's about 2 visits every 5 minutes for an entire year!

I don't know anyone that thirsty. ^_^

Clearly, odds do not work as a countdown. And unfortunately, people end up in the hospital every year for drinking fountain mishaps. So what gives?

Odds are calculated by taking the number of people (or attempts) and dividing by the number of incidents. In this case, there are approximately 307 million people in the United States. And every year, roughly 1391 people in the US wind up at the ER from a drinking fountain accident.

307 million people divided by 1391 fountain accidents = 220,700. Which is why the odds are 1 in 220,700 that a person in the United States will have an accident.

There are ways to affect your individual odds. If you avoid drinking fountains for the rest of your life, your personal odds are pretty close to zero. (I'm not going to discount the possibility of a drinking fountain falling from the sky and bonking you on the head. Weirder things have happened.)

Meanwhile, if you're feeling masochistic you could use drinking fountains as often as possible. Then you'd have a better chance of having an accident versus the person living in a water-fountain-free bomb shelter. That part makes sense. ^_^

HOWEVER, every time you use a drinking fountain, you still have a 1 in 220,700 chance of having an accident. It doesn't matter if you visit one every day or once a year. Someone could have an accident on their first trip!

Now let's apply this to games.

Cindy, Jan, and Marsha head to an arcade and they all play the same game. The game isn't rigged to favor any particular person, but here's what happens:

• Cindy plays 500 times and wins on her 500th play. Woohoo!
• Jan plays 10 times and wins on her 2nd and 10th play!! (Lucky girl!)
• Marsha plays 2,490 times and doesn't win anything. :(

Can you figure out the odds for this game?

First we count the total number of plays. (3,000 in this case.) Then we count the number of wins. (1 for Cindy, 2 for Jan, 0 for Marsha. 3 total wins.) Now we divide the number of plays by the number of wins. 3/3000 = 1/1000. Each time someone sits down to play they have a 1 in 1,000 shot of winning.

But wait! Marsha played 2,490 times! If the odds are 1 in 1,000 then she should have won at least twice, right?

Nope! This is why I say odds are practically meaningless when applied to individual people. Remember, odds are calculated by using group results! That makes a huge difference!

If Marsha was the only person to ever play that game, then yeah, she would eventually win. She might also play 5,000+ times before she won anything, and then have several wins in quick succession. Odds don't care about who you are or how long you've been playing.

Now here comes the next confusing part: Understanding how some people can win multiple times.

Bobby, Peter, and Greg hear about Jan's crazy luck so they go play the exact same game with the 1 in 1,000 odds. Each of them play exactly 1,000 times. (It was a slow day.) They thought that each of them would win once, but that didn't happen. Instead, Greg won twice and Peter didn't win anything at all!

As you might imagine, life at the Brady house turns chaotic. Marsha is certain that Jan cheated, and Peter stomps around the house loudly saying, "I NEVER win!!"

Finally it reaches a breaking point. Carol, Mike, and Alice all head down to the arcade and demand to speak to the manager. They're sure he's rigging the games somehow and they'll call the police, gosh darn it!

With a sigh, the manager produces a coin. He says, "Each time you flip a coin you have a 50% chance of the coin landing heads up. (1 in 2 odds.) If you flip a coin 10 times you probably expect to end up with 5 heads and 5 tails." They nod and agree that sounds right.

He digs in his pockets to get more coins, and then asks each of them to flip a coin 10 times to see what happens. (Alice is suspicious and uses one of her own coins.) Here were their results.

• Carol flipped 6 heads and 4 tails
• Mike flipped 6 heads and 4 tails
• Alice flipped 2 heads and 8 tails

All three were stunned. It should have been even!

The manager pulls out a white board and starts to explain combinatorics. Combinatorics looks at combinations (duh) and probability. ^_^

In the case of 10 penny flips, there are 11 possible combinations. (Edit: I oversimplified this. Read Chris's comment at the end for a full explanation!)

• 0 heads, 10 tails
• 1 head, 9 tails
• 2 heads, 8 tails
• 3 heads, 7 tails
• 4 heads, 6 tails
• 5 heads, 5 tails
• 6 heads, 4 tails
• 7 heads, 3 tails
• 8 heads, 2 tails
• 9 heads, 1 tail
• 10 heads, 0 tails

This means that the odds of flipping exactly 5 heads and 5 tails are 1 in 11. (Or a 9% chance.) This also means that you have a 10 in 11 chance of flipping any other combination. That's a 91% chance of getting something other than 5 heads 5 tails!

You can try this at home too! I think it's fascinating. ^_^

But how does combinatorics relate to winning games? Well, one of the biggest complaints at Gamesville is that there are repeat winners. Frankly, it would be suspect if there weren't any repeat winners! Let's take a look at Bobby, Peter, and Greg again. They were playing a 1 in 1,000 odds game, so it was pretty likely that they would have 3 wins in their 3,000 total plays. How likely is it that each of them would win one prize?

Let's see! In the graph below, each line across represents one possible outcome.

Bobby	Peter	Greg
1	1	1
2	1	0
2	0	1
1	2	0
0	2	1
1	0	2
0	1	2
3	0	0
0	3	0
0	0	3

Assuming that 3 prizes are given out, there are ten total combinations. That makes percents easy. Woohoo!

• 10% chance that each player will win one prize each.
• 30% chance that one player will win ALL of the prizes!
• 60% chance that one player will win two prizes and one player gets nothing.

It's entirely possible that each player could get one prize each. However, it is the least likely combination! And if you didn't notice, there is a 90% chance that at least one player will not win anything.

This is a simplified explanation of combinatorics, but hopefully you get the idea. ^_^

I'd like to end this post with something that I read in a news article many years ago. It was a study on people who defined themselves as lucky versus people who defined themselves as unlucky. Unsurprisingly it turned out that the lucky people really did have better outcomes! The researchers looked closer to try and figure out what made one person lucky over another. And you know what the biggest difference is? Lucky people keep trying. Unlucky people generally give up quicker.

There are more prizes on Gamesville than any other free site that I've found, and you do have better odds of winning something at Gamesville versus, say, iWon. Regardless, you are never guaranteed a win. It's entirely possible to play for years and never win anything. But if you stop playing entirely, then your odds are zero. You've no chance of winning if you don't play!

I hope you enjoyed this installment of the Sunday Reader. ^_^ If you have any questions or comments, please post!