Publishers Clearing House ‘$5,000 A Week Forever’ Ends After Company Bankruptcy
Posted on: September 10, 2025, 08:02h.
Last updated on: September 10, 2025, 12:11h.
- Publishers Clearing House winners say their prizes have stopped after the company went bankrupt
- PCH has since been acquired by an online sweepstakes company
Another winner of a Publishers Clearing House (PCH) “$5,000 A Week Forever” promotion has come forward, telling the media that he, too, has seen his supposedly guaranteed winnings for life come to an end.
In 2012, John Wyllie saw the PCH Prize Patrol knock on his door. The Oregon man, then aged 48, was told he had won the $5,000 A Week Forever sweepstakes promotion. Seemingly set for life, as the prize comes to $260K a year before taxes, Wyllie says he’s since lived rather care-free.
After PCH went bankrupt and was acquired in July by an online sweepstakes gaming firm — ARB Interactive — Wyllie, like others Casino.org has heard from, is now in jeopardy of financial ruin.
This feels like a nightmare. I thought this was going to go on for the rest of my life, so I didn’t really worry about money,” Wyllie told KGW8, an NBC News affiliate in Portland.
“Why didn’t somebody give me a heads up? ‘Hey, we’re going out of business,'” Wyllie asked.
Financial Ruin
Wyllie, by all accounts, was living the good life before Publishers Clearing House’s financial troubles. He says the unexpected stoppage of his $5,000 a week prize has forced him to sell his jet ski and trailer.
“Pretty sure I’m going to lose my home. I had a little bit of money left over, and that’s what I’m living on right now,” Wyllie said.
PCH was bought by ARB, best known for its Modo Casino, an online sweepstakes platform that critics say is essentially an unregulated online casino operation. Sweeps sites continue to face a bounty of litigation and scrutiny, with this week’s headlines including the California Senate unanimously passing legislation to outlaw sweeps websites and the Louisiana Department of Revenue filing a lawsuit against sweeps leaders to recoup $44 million in unpaid taxes.
ARB told Casino.org in August that it understands the concerns surrounding unpaid prizes owed to past winners and is taking steps “to ensure that every future prize winner can participate with absolute confidence.”
As for winners under the former PCH ownership, like Wyllie, ARB said it is “not responsible for prize obligations incurred before our acquisition.” The company said the only exceptions are prize obligations tied to contest winners after July 15, 2025, as mandated by the acquisition terms.
A former PCH executive who wrote a book, “Downfall of an Icon: The True Inside Story of Publishers Clearing House,” said the company stopped taking out insurance policies on its winners’ prizes in 2003.
Winners Turned Losers
It is thought that there are more than a dozen Publishers Clearing House winners who have been impacted by the former company’s bankruptcy and acquisition.
Last month, Casino.org reported that a married couple, both disabled veterans, had also seen their $5,000 A Week Forever prize cease.
“In the beginning of last year, after we had gotten paid, they could have sent us an email saying, ‘This is likely the last time you will get paid,'” Tamar Veatch told The Wall Street Journal. “That sucks, but at least we would have been able to budget around it.”
Last Comment ( 1 )
Just like a pension, it's only good as long as the company exists, if they cease to exist you get nothing. It sucks that they didn't get better informed, but Publisher's Clearing House's difficulties has been fairly widely publicized, they could have followed up themselves, and they got more money than most struggling people get in their lifetime.