I'm thinking about promoting my football forums by giving away prizes. I would do something like everyone who has 100 posts or more are entered into a random drawing, and whoever wins the drawing gets the prize. Right now, I'm thinking of having a Madden video game as one prize, and maybe something like $50.00 as another prize. Is their anything I should know legally about doing something like this? Do I need to have certain regulations stated before the contest, does something tax-related need to be filed, etc. And one more question...if I run something like this, I wouldn't be braking any terms for Google Adsense, would I?
Can't answer any of your questions, however I've been doing some giveaways on a new forum of mine - very targetted prizes. Results for the prizes are dismal. "introduce yourself and win $100" had about one real post to it.
If you want to make a giveaway do not forget about the hidden cost of having a winner in another country and the cost of delivering the prize. The best prize I ever won was as a kid. Marvel Comics used to give out "No Prizes" for really good letters to the editor. I won several, including one for an explanation of how Submariner could breath under water and on land; and another for the similarity between real life hero Audie Murphy and Sgt. Fury. The prize was a simple, empty envelope. You might consider something similar for the best posts -- announcing a new "Non Prize" winner each month. This costs nothing and might have the desired effect -- improving the content of posts and thereby improving participation. Moreover, there should be no legal, ethical, cultural, religious, geographic or moral issues involved.