Montana Sweepstakes Laws: Rules & Requirements

Montana promotions: maintain free entry throughout, avoid purchase or donation advantages and check the defined promotional-game conditions.

Planning a free giveaway or photo/video competition open to Montana residents? This guide focuses on ordinary commercial promotions with free entry, including random drawings and submission contests using judges or public voting. Paid entries or votes, purchase-linked promotions, charitable raffles and regulated prizes need separate analysis.

Editorial review: September 11, 2026. Sources are linked beside the guidance they support. This is an informational overview, not legal advice for a particular campaign.

Free participation throughout the promotion

Montana DOJ’s sweepstakes guidance calls for free entry to remain available throughout and warns against purchase, membership or donation advantages. The underlying promotional-game definition also contains conditions that depend on the game’s mechanics.

Keep the free entry method open for the entire advertised period. Do not introduce a paying-participant advantage midway through the campaign while continuing to describe all entries as equal. The DOJ document’s alcohol-industry instructions apply to that industry, not automatically to every brand.

Sources: Montana DOJ sweepstakes FAQ; Montana Code §23-5-112.

Describe the contest before accepting submissions

For free photo/video submissions, explain whether merit judging, public voting or another disclosed process decides the award. Publish the entry and voting periods and tie rules as practical administration guidance.

Separate that format from paid raffles or gambling-style electronic play. Different Montana provisions address those activities; the word “promotion” alone does not establish that the free brand-contest analysis applies.

Sources: Montana promotional-game definitions.

Registration and campaigns open to other states

For ordinary free commercial sweepstakes, the familiar prize-value filing regimes are in New York, Florida and Rhode Island. That does not remove Montana's disclosure and conduct rules described above, or special rules for a different industry or format. See the registration guide and its sources for that distinction.

The state-law directory links to all 50 states and DC. A “void where prohibited” line does not itself define your eligible audience or complete a required filing.

Before opening entries

Use these practical drafting and administration steps alongside the applicable state rules:

• Identify the sponsor, eligible entrants, entry period and advertised prize.
• Explain the free entry method and how winners are selected. For submissions, describe judging criteria or voting stages and tie handling.
• Make advertisements, the form and full rules agree; do not imply an entrant has already won.
• Plan verification, notification and fulfillment, and retain the rules and selection records.

Federal advertising standards also apply. The FTC warns against misleading purchase prompts and prize claims; see its advertising guidance. Tax reporting and channel-specific rules are covered in the national sweepstakes guide.