In-App Sweepstakes
A self-funded engagement loop that turned wallet balances into sweepstakes entries, giving users a reason to reinvest instead of instantly withdrawing earned cash.
The problem
Users were earning real cash, then immediately withdrawing it, limiting downstream engagement and lifetime value. Prior sweepstakes ran through email and in-app messages, with low visibility, no sense of progress, and no incentive to keep money in the wallet. At the same time, users could not deposit money directly, so the only way to influence wallet behavior was through what users chose to do with earned funds.
The product
A native, in-feed experience that let users earn entries through four channels: wallet balance bonuses (every $25 retained unlocked incremental entries), gameplay earnings ($0.10 earned equaled 1 entry), a paid Spin-the-Wheel ($1 for randomized entries, tuned to about 38 to 39 entries per dollar), and tiered direct entry purchases from $0.15 to $5. All paths rolled into a single, transparent entry counter with a countdown and clear rules.
Economy and controls
- A 2,500 entry cap per user to prevent dominance by whales while still allowing high engagement.
- Tiered pricing that pushed users toward higher-value bundles, with the $5 / 100-entry option consistently accounting for about 78 to 80% of purchased entries.
- Expected-value tuning for spins to ensure fairness, repeatability, and margin safety, plus fraud controls and winner identity verification.
My role
As Product Manager I defined the strategy and success metrics, designed the wallet-retention and reinvestment mechanics, partnered with finance, legal, fraud, data, and marketing to ship a compliant system, wrote requirements across mobile, backend, data, and tooling, and operated the system post-launch to tune odds, pricing, and caps.