Sweepstakes aficionado publishes newsletter on how to enter top

Colorado Springs Business Journal, Feb 13, 2004 by Stephanie Cline

Andrea Marker will soon be leaving for Jamaica free of charge. Marker, a single mother and Colorado Springs native, has made a career out of entering sweepstakes.

Widowed when her children were young, Marker decided to enter sweepstakes and sell antiques on e-Bay to support her family. I wanted to be able to take my kids on fabulous vacations, said Marker. I just got so caught up in the whole sweepstakes deal that I quit my job.

Marker is now the publisher of Sweepstakes Winner!, a bi-weekly newsletter that provides information on how to enter top national sweepstakes. The January 14th, 2004 issue boasts weekend spa getaways, cash prizes and a trip to the Super Bowl in 2005. According to Marker, Sweepstakes Winner! deals primarily with snail mail entries.

Marker began sending in an occasional sweepstakes entry 15 years ago, but it was not until five years ago that she invested a great deal of money in her own sweepstakes experiment. For 12 months Marker spent $100 in postage to send in sweepstakes entries. Marker won four trips, diamonds, cash and electronics during her experiment. In the end, her winnings totaled more than $26,000 for the year.

I usually won every three months that year, said Marker. She and her family were flown to Reno by Country Music Television and met country musician Jo Dee Messina. Marker also received $5,000 in cash as a part of the contest.

The sweepstakes world came under close government scrutiny in 1999. In December of that year, President Clinton signed the Deceptive Mail Prevention and Enforcement Act. The law took effect in April, 2000.

All sweepstakes are now regulated by federal law because they use the U.S. Postal Service and the Internet, said Marker.

According to the Deceptive Mail Prevention and Enforcement law, companies sending out sweepstakes mailings must provide their contact information. They must also indicate there is no purchase necessary, and the terms and conditions of the sweepstakes must be clearly stated.

The law also requires that all non-negotiable facsimile checks must read non-negotiable. Sweepstakes mailings are no longer permitted to pose as government documents or even imply government connection or endorsement unless said mailings carry at least two disclaimers.

Prior to the 1999 legislation, many sweepstakes contestants in the United States were duped into spending hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars on products in hopes of increasing their chances of winning. This is no longer the case.

Marker's Sweepstakes Winner! newsletter is published every other Wednesday, and a one-year subscription is $50. She began publishing in September 2003 and there are currently 150 subscribers. I hope to be at 10,000 subscribers within the next 12-14 months, said Marker.

To subscribe to Marker's newsletter visit www.SweepstakesWinner.com/subscribe or order by mail at Fishlips Publishing, P.O. Box 9487 Colorado Springs, CO 80932-0487.