Publishers Clearing House Names Modo Official Social Casino, PCH Odds Longer Than Mega Millions
Posted on: August 29, 2025, 08:20h.
Last updated on: August 29, 2025, 09:18h.
- Modo Casino and Publishers Clearing House are officially intertwined
- Modo is the official social casino of PCH
- Social sweepstakes are the subject of much controversy
Publishers Clearing House (PCH) was acquired in June by ARB Interactive, the parent company to Modo Casino, an online operation that claims to run free-to-play social casino games, but additionally allows the use of a secondary digital coin that critics say amounts to real-money gambling.
The PCH website has since included a tab for the Modo Casino, the “Official Social Casino of Publishers Clearing House.”
“America’s Favorite Sweepstakes Meets America’s Social Casino,” the signup page reads. The introductory promo allows new users to receive 17,500 Gold Coins and “5 Free Sweepstakes Coins” for just $0.99.
In a release to Casino.org, PCH says it’s opposing a bill in California to prohibit online sweepstakes games.
Sweepstakes promotions are lawful marketing mechanisms that encourage optional in-game purchases of virtual tokens to enhance gameplay on online platforms,” the company said in submitted testimony to the California Senate Appropriations Committee, which is reviewing Assembly Bill 831.
Social sweepstakes casinos offer “sweepstake coins” that can be redeemed for real money, once the SCs are gambled a certain number of times to qualify them for withdrawal. Gold Coins are true social gaming tokens that cannot be redeemed for cash or typically anything of value.
The PCH site doesn’t offer SC gaming, but instead, only true social games where players can win additional entries into the major sweepstakes contests. For a PCH user to access slots and live-dealer table games, they must venture to Modo.
PCH Odds Much Longer Than Mega Millions
Publishers Clearing House is best known for Prize Patrol, a marketing ploy where PCH officials ran to customers’ doorsteps to inform them that they had won life-changing money.
In its heyday, PCH was a door-to-door magazine subscription service. Many customers thought their odds of having their doorbell rung by the Prize Patrol improved with more magazine subscriptions. They didn’t.
Since the internet became a part of daily life, PCH’s operations primarily lived online. Magazines were still sold, though the company’s primary business model ran on online sweepstakes.
PCH has always allowed users to enter its sweepstakes for free. For those wishing to enter more than once a day, the online website offers social games where players can accrue additional gameplay tokens and secondary prizes.
The former business model relied on online advertisements, as the website had once garnered considerable traffic. PCH also sold the information on its millions of registered users to third-party advertisers.
One thing that’s remained constant is that the odds of winning a PCH sweepstakes are dismal — way worse than winning a Mega Millions or Powerball jackpot.
PCH is currently running two major sweepstakes: a $5,000 prize for two winners, called the “$10,000 American Dream,” and a single winner of the “$10,000 for Gas & Groceries.”
PCH estimates your odds of winning either sweepstakes at 1 in 4.8 billion. The odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are 1 in 290.4 million. The odds of winning Powerball are 1 in 292.2 million.
Social Casinos Allow Real Money Redemption
Casino.org recently carried out an investigation into social casino games by signing up and playing with several leaders. We were afforded “free” sweeps coins, along with gold coins, in exchange for our real money deposits.
We played the social slot machines and table games, and then ventured into the sweeps side of the platforms. We found not only slot machines but also live-dealer table games. We bet our sweeps coins on slots, blackjack, baccarat, and roulette. We accessed the real money games in Pennsylvania and Virginia.
After experiencing the operations, we successfully redeemed our winnings and whatever money we had left over.
A customer service representative told us, when pressed for how long it would take to “cash out” our winnings, that sweeps coins “have no cash value,” but can “be redeemed.” She apparently took issue with “cash out.” The three withdrawals were completed within a week.
After requesting our account to be closed with one sweepstakes casino, we were asked for an explanation as to why we wanted to cease playing. We told the online customer service representative that we were a problem gambler and no longer wanted access.
Their response: “Your account has now been closed. If you wish to reopen at any time, please just reach out to me. Fingers crossed for better luck next time, and I’ll do my best to pop some SC in your account on reopening.”
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