Question about Roller Beetle Sweepstakes legality [merged]

[Astralporing.1957]

I don't see what is unclear about the phrase you quoted. They flat out said it's prohibited for one person to enter under more than one identity, or more than once. Yes, your account can be theoretically registered to another person, but if it's you that are playing on it, it's also a violation (albeit of a different kind) - playing on someone else's account is also forbidden, remember?

[Shuzsie.9263]

I cant see why other countries that are not on the list should be left out. It could have been a separate list with prices from the gem store. I would have been happy with that and I'm sure everyone else excluded from the list would have been.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

What price in the Gem Store would the car be? Or the trip?

The in-game items are available to everyone.

[TexZero.7910]

> @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> What price in the Gem Store would the car be? Or the trip?

> The in-game items are available to everyone.

 

I mean it would be roughly the same as whatever 20K USD is in gems. Unless you count finacing and interest rates for the car that is.

[Just a flesh wound.3589]

> @"TexZero.7910" said:

> > @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> > What price in the Gem Store would the car be? Or the trip?

> > The in-game items are available to everyone.

>

> I mean it would be roughly the same as whatever 20K USD is in gems. Unless you count finacing and interest rates for the car that is.

 

I thought the problem was that some countries have restrictions on contests with prizes. Would it matter whether some prizes are in game? 20k USD worth of gems has a $ value which I would think brings it back to real world value.

 

 

[evlover.6270]

> @"Ashen.2907" said:

> ANet is not leaving people out, Those people have voted for governments that enact laws excluding them.

 

If you can't see how this contest is leaving people out, kudos to you..

And not everyone voted for those governments fyi..

 

Again, if there are laws to follow, then don't go "we can't do it for everyone cause there are different laws", it's like making a police car with blue flashlights available to the public and then go like "oh, we didn't know there are fines for driving with a blue flashlight". It's a poor excuse for not being able to play by the rules.

 

 

[Danikat.8537]

> @"Just a flesh wound.3589" said:

> > @"TexZero.7910" said:

> > > @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:

> > > What price in the Gem Store would the car be? Or the trip?

> > > The in-game items are available to everyone.

> >

> > I mean it would be roughly the same as whatever 20K USD is in gems. Unless you count finacing and interest rates for the car that is.

>

> I thought the problem was that some countries have restrictions on contests with prizes. Would it matter whether some prizes are in game? 20k USD worth of gems has a $ value which I would think brings it back to real world value.

 

It's highly unlikely all those countries are excluded for the same reason.

 

As people have been saying laws vary between countries. Some might not allow this type of prize but for others the reason could be different, and not necessarily that they don't allow this type of contest at all. If for example one country requires you to pay a $100 fee for a gambling licence to run a contest like this, and Anet knows there's relatively few GW2 players in that country and they have a very low chance of winning anyway they might decide it's not worth it. Or trying to get permission to run a contest from overseas, might be horribly complicated. If I remember correctly Gaile mentioned that one country requires a different, exclusive, prize pool only for their residents.

 

I would have thought in-game prizes would be ok since legally nothing in GW2 (including gems) has any real-world value and we don't own anything on our accounts. But if you've got two separate prize pools and people from some countries are only allowed one and people from other places are allowed the others why even make it once contest?

 

Maybe they could do a contest later on for everyone _except_ those eligible for this one, with in-game prizes? Although I can imagine that would also make people angry.

[Hynax.9536]

I was quite excited with the news about roller bettle races and prizes, but then...

 

"1. ELIGIBILITY: ArenaNet “Guild Wars 2 Roller Beetle Racing” Sweepstakes (“Sweepstakes”) is open only to legal residents of **Austria, Canada (excluding the Province of Quebec), Finland, France, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) and the United States (including the District of Columbia)**, who possess a valid form of identification and are 18 years of age or older (or legal age of majority in the jurisdiction in which they reside)."

 

Why? What about us?(I'm from Brazil)

[Haleydawn.3764]

Law.

As nice as having a universal legal system would actually be in a perfect world, the planet likes to make everything complicated by segregating by country!

 

Weird that.

Can these posts **please** stop. Gaile has already addressed why law makes things like running sweepstakes and competitions difficult on a global scale.

 

[Just a flesh wound.3589]

>it's prohibited for one person to enter under more than one identity, or more than once.

 

Seems clear enough to me. You can’t enter more than once or enter using more than one name.

 

>BUT multiple accounts can easily be registered to different people / names

 

They could, but if someone wins a prize using an account with a fake name will they get the prize? If an account registered under a fake name wins they’ll need to prove that is them (have fun doing that) and if it triggers an audit of their account and Anet sees they raced using more than one account then they will be disqualified. If they use an account bought from someone else and is registered to that other person then they’ll be disqualified also.

[Danikat.8537]

I wonder how this actually works, especially for people who normally play more than one account.

 

The rules say: "Additional Entry Details: Limit one (1) weekly prize pool drawing entry per User ID per week. Limit four (4) grand prize entries (one (1) per week) per Entrant per User ID. Entries made with multiple e-mail addresses, under multiple identities or through the use of any agent or other device or artifice to enter multiple times will be deemed invalid. All entries must be submitted in the name of an individual person and prizes can only be awarded to the person whose name is listed on the entry."

 

But I don't understand how that works in practice because, unless I've missed it, there isn't any requirement to give them your name. There's an _option_ on the account page of the main site, but you don't have to fill it in. And of course the username and email address has to be different for each account. So how can they tell what's two separate people and what's one person using two accounts? The obvious answer is they do it by IP addresses, but those can change and then you run the risk of excluding people who live together.

 

If someone has two accounts and they choose to do the roller beetle races on both how does Anet work out which one counts for the sweepstakes and which doesn't? If I was to do a race on both accounts the first week and then only on one account in the next 3 weeks am I risking Anet deciding the account which only entered once is the one to use and not counting me for future draws?

[Danikat.8537]

Maybe if Anet does this in future they can add an FAQ to the rules with "Why isn't my country included?" and give some examples.

 

Of course it wouldn't be practical to list why every excluded country (over 100) isn't eligible but they could give general examples like Gaile did in her post and maybe specifics for a few places where they know they have a lot of players.

[Hamfast.8719]

It's a known fact that you Brazilians are too good. ANet knows this and is only trying to level the playing field for the rest of us.

[Ardid.7203]

I would really love to know what laws on my country keep leaving us out of GW2 activities, yet doesn't seem to affect other international contests at all.

[Danikat.8537]

> @"Ardid.7203" said:

> I would really love to know what laws on my country keep leaving us out of GW2 activities, yet doesn't seem to affect other international contests at all.

 

If you really want to know you can probably get a rough idea by searching online. Of course you won't find something explaining why this specific contest doesn't include your country, but you could find out what's involved in running a contest like this and that might give you an idea what about it Anet was unwilling to do.

 

Unfortunately it might involve trying to decipher pages of 'legalese' and trying to get to grips with the specifics of different types of contest and how gambling is defined by your government...it probably wouldn't be fun but it might be informative.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

> @"Danikat.8537" said:

> > @"Ardid.7203" said:

> > I would really love to know what laws on my country keep leaving us out of GW2 activities, yet doesn't seem to affect other international contests at all.

>

> If you really want to know you can probably get a rough idea by searching online. Of course you won't find something explaining why this specific contest doesn't include your country, but you could find out what's involved in running a contest like this and that might give you an idea what about it Anet was unwilling to do.

>

> Unfortunately it might involve trying to decipher pages of 'legalese' and trying to get to grips with the specifics of different types of contest and how gambling is defined by your government...it probably wouldn't be fun but it might be informative.

 

There's some decent threads floating around that do a good job of translating that into simpler language. Here's one about why Quebec is excluded even when the rest of Canada is included:

https://www.thebalanceeveryday.com/why-are-so-many-competitions-void-in-quebec-896835

 

Specifics (for Quebec) include:

>! > * Register the sweepstakes rules and all advertisements used to promote the contest with the Quebec government at least 30 days ahead of the sweepstakes' launch.

>! > * Publish the full text of the sweepstakes' rules at least 10 days before the giveaway begins.

>! > * Pay a fee of up to 10% of the sweepstakes' value, depending on who is allowed to enter.

>! > * Agree to allow the government of Quebec to mediate any lawsuits arising from the contest.

>! > * Follow strict guidelines about the contents of the sweepstakes rules.

>! > * Allow the government of Quebec the right to approve any changes to the giveaway that need to be made once it has started, and to approve canceling the giveaway if it becomes necessary to do so.

>! > * File a written report after the contest has concluded, attesting that the prizes have been delivered or attempted to be delivered.

>! > * Agree to let the Regie des alcools, des courses et des jeux mediate any disagreements with the public.

>! > * File security in the amount of the prize value, to ensure that the prizes are actually awarded.

>! > * Follow a number of other rules and guidelines listed under Quebec's Sweepstakes Laws.

 

It's a lot of extra steps compared to other jurisdictions. And even though the rules are there to protect its citizens (and with good reason), they also create a set of legal loopholes that could put a company at risk for failing a cross the right _T_ or dot the right _I_.

 

****

Here's the other thing with this particular give away: it's going to cost ANet the same amount of prize money regardless of which countries are eligible. Their vested in interest is in the maximum amount of participants, so they get maximum exposure, in the maximum number of markets. It's better for them to offer this in more places, not fewer. The only reason they won't is because something got in their way

[Gaile Gray.6029]

> @"Danikat.8537" said:

> Maybe if Anet does this in future they can add an FAQ to the rules with "Why isn't my country included?" and give some examples.

>

> Of course it wouldn't be practical to list why every excluded country (over 100) isn't eligible but they could give general examples like Gaile did in her post and maybe specifics for a few places where they know they have a lot of players.

 

An FAQ could be helpful, but:

 

1. It would require frequent updating because laws change frequently and, sometimes, new countries are formed. The information about regional law is available to those interested in obtaining it.

2. Posting an FAQ could inspire conversations about regional laws, and that's really not a topic that would be particularly suitable here. We could not answer questions, such as, "Are you sure that my country's legal statement about sweepstakes and contests meant [this] when maybe they meant [that other thing]?" "Have you tried [this option] to work around the legal restrictions?" "Why don't you just pay a fee or hire a country-specific attorney to allow residents of my country to enter?" (You know, maybe I _can_ answer that last one: There are 195 countries on record today, and laws change, it seems, with every new day. Imagine the scale of that endeavor!)

 

As I said earlier, we very much wish to include everyone, and we will do our best to do that with all our offerings, even while we will sometimes extend an opportunity to a specific country or group of countries, as partnerships are developed. Exceptions are going to arise, and normally they are the result of local legal restrictions or requirements that preclude us from including that country, state, or province.

[Randulf.7614]

> @"Danikat.8537" said:

> Maybe if Anet does this in future they can add an FAQ to the rules with "Why isn't my country included?" and give some examples.

>

 

Only if they do it using an Animaniacs style of presentation

 

 

 

[Taelac.7036]

> @"Danikat.8537" said:

> If someone has two accounts and they choose to do the roller beetle races on both how does Anet work out which one counts for the sweepstakes and which doesn't? If I was to do a race on both accounts the first week and then only on one account in the next 3 weeks am I risking Anet deciding the account which only entered once is the one to use and not counting me for future draws?

Entry required signing up with your account email address at the website and also participating in one race per week. If you don't sign up your secondary account, its races shouldn't result in sweepstakes entries.

[Illconceived Was Na.9781]

I think it's boilerplate legalese that boils down to: they will draw names based on email addresses. If they happen to find someone on the list who has multiple addresses, they'll purge the extras.

 

I wouldn't worry too much about the phrasing. The plaintext reading is all that's important: they only want players entering once. They'll do all the usual stuff to reduce duplication. And if they catch anyone deliberately trying to bypass the rules, they've given themselves legal cover to disqualify them before or after the drawing takes place.

 

tl;dr it means what everyone thinks it means; there's just not really any good way to write it so it's 100% unambiguous to everyone.

[FitzChevalerie.1035]

Just wondering, why are canadians from quebec excluded ?

[Elspereth.1280]

> @"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

> I think it's boilerplate legalese that boils down to: they will draw names based on email addresses. If they happen to find someone on the list who has multiple addresses, they'll purge the extras.

>

I think it goes a little further than that:

 

"Entries made with multiple e-mail addresses, under multiple identities or through the use of any agent or other device or artifice to enter multiple times will be deemed invalid."

 

To me that says that if someone in on the list with multiple addresses all of them will be purged, not just the extras.

 

[Gaile Gray.6029]

> @"FitzChevalerie.1035" said:

> Just wondering, why are canadians from quebec excluded ?

 

If you search the Internet, you'll find a ton of articles on this very question. Here are a few:

https://www.thebalanceeveryday.com/why-are-so-many-competitions-void-in-quebec-896835

https://business.financialpost.com/entrepreneur/why-many-contests-exclude-quebec-residents

 

[Gaile Gray.6029]

As to the question of multiple entries into the sweepstakes, please be aware that all eligible players are limited to one sweepstakes entry per week and all entries are subject to verification.

[Menzo.2185]

WHY????????

Why I can't participate? I'm from BRAZIL, send me the money if I win. Why I'm not eligible?????

 

"ArenaNet “Guild Wars 2 Roller Beetle Racing” Sweepstakes (“Sweepstakes”) is open only to legal residents of Austria, Canada (excluding the Province of Quebec), Finland, France, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, Switzerland, the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) and the United States (including the District of Columbia)"