Question 1

What is a sweepstake?

Accepted Answer

A sweepstake is a friendly group competition where each person is randomly assigned one or more teams in a tournament. Whoever's teams perform best wins the agreed prize. Swoopstaker is the free tool that runs the whole thing — draw, leaderboard, prize tracking — automatically.

Question 2

Is Swoopstaker really free?

Accepted Answer

Yes. The Free tier lets you run one active Swoopstake at a time, with a small Swoopstaker watermark on the public and display pages. Archive or complete it whenever you're done and start another. No credit card, no trial.

Question 3

What's the difference between Free and Pro?

Accepted Answer

Pro (£4.99/mo or £49.99/yr) unlocks unlimited active Swoopstakes, white-label display (no Swoopstaker branding), your own logo and colours, custom display slides, a vanity swoopstaker.com/your-name URL, and full control over what shows on public and display pages.

Question 4

What happens to my Swoopstakes if I cancel Pro?

Accepted Answer

Nothing is deleted. You keep Pro features until the end of your billing period. After that, if you have more than one active Swoopstake, the most recently updated one stays active and the rest are paused — hidden from the public but fully preserved. You can reactivate any paused one anytime (free users can keep one active; or upgrade back to Pro to reactivate them all).

Question 5

Is Swoopstaker a gambling platform?

Accepted Answer

No. Swoopstaker is a free tool for organising sweepstakes for fun. We don't process entry fees, hold funds, or take a cut of any prizes. Organisers run their own draws and are responsible for following local laws.

Question 6

How do I run a World Cup sweepstake at work?

Accepted Answer

Sign up free, pick the World Cup 2026 template (all 48 teams pre-loaded), paste your colleagues' names, hit shuffle to draw teams, and share the public link in Slack or Teams. Update results as games happen — the leaderboard updates live.

Question 7

How many people can join?

Accepted Answer

There's no hard cap on participants per Swoopstake. We've tested with 100+ in a single pool. The teams are split evenly across however many people you add.

Question 8

Do participants need to download anything?

Accepted Answer

No. Guests just open the share link in any browser — phone, laptop or pub TV. No app, no signup, no account.

Question 9

Are sweepstakes private?

Accepted Answer

Sweepstakes are accessible via their unique share link — anyone with the /s/<code> URL can view the live page. We never list sweepstakes publicly anywhere on the site.

Question 10

How are prize winners decided?

Accepted Answer

Each prize has a type (e.g. 1st place, last place, most points, best goal difference). As you update team results, winners auto-recalculate. Ties are broken by points, then goal difference, then goals scored.

Question 11

How does scoring work in the knockout rounds?

Accepted Answer

Points, goals and goal difference only accumulate during the group stage (3 for a win, 1 for a draw, 0 for a loss). Once the knockouts start, no extra points are awarded — instead, participants are ranked first by the furthest stage any of their teams reached (Winner → Final → Semi → Quarter → R16 → R32 → Group), and only then by group-stage points, goal difference and goals. So a participant whose team wins the trophy will always beat one whose team went out earlier, regardless of group points.

Question 12

Can I run a custom tournament?

Accepted Answer

Yes — use the Custom template and enter your own team list. You can also pick from World Cup 2026 or our generic knockout / league templates.

Question 13

How does the team draw work?

Accepted Answer

Hit 'Start the Draw' and pick draws round by round, one click per participant — we shuffle the teams across participants using a cryptographic random source. Or pick 'Manual' and assign teams yourself.

Question 14

Do prizes have to be cash?

Accepted Answer

Not at all. Prizes are free-text — enter whatever you're offering: cash, vouchers, gifts, a holiday, a trophy, or 'bragging rights'. You decide.

Question 15

Can people pay entry fees through Swoopstaker?

Accepted Answer

Not yet — for now, collect entries however you normally would (cash, Venmo, PayPal). Swoopstaker just tracks the totals.

Question 16

Will my World Cup 2026 sweepstake stop working?

Accepted Answer

Tournament templates expire after the event ends, but your sweepstake (with its results and standings) stays live. You can archive it whenever you're done.

Question 17

How do I get help?

Accepted Answer

Hit the Contact page and we'll respond within a day or two.

FAQ