Sweepstakes company Publishers Clearing House declared bankruptcy in April and was bought in July. The company’s new owners are not honoring prizes awarded before the purchase.
“We understand the concerns surrounding unpaid prizes owed to past winners … While ARB is not responsible for prize obligations incurred before our acquisition… we recognize the impact this has had on past winners and the disappointment caused by the bankruptcy process,” new owners ARB Interactive told Casino.org.
ARB Interactive told Casino.org that it only assumed responsibility for prizes awarded after July 15. These include two unawarded prizes worth up to $2.5 million, one of which will be awarded on Sept. 30 and up to $975,000 of a prize first awarded in May, ARB Interactive told Casino.org.
Other past winners of Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes were listed as unsecured creditors in the company’s bankruptcy filing, according to the New York Times.
“I’m getting the shaft, on top of the shaft,” John Wyllie, who won $5,000 a week for life from Publishers Clearing House in 2012, told the New York Times.
Mr. Wyllie used to receive $260,000 in his bank account each January, but noticed that there was no payment in January 2025.
Mr. Wyllie told Portland, Oregon, TV station KGW-TV that he had to sell his jet ski and trailer to make ends meet after spending years out of the workforce, and that he might also lose the house he bought after first winning the sweepstakes.
Tamar Veatch, who won a sweepstakes with her husband in 2021 and was getting nearly $200,000 a year in prize money according to the New York Times, told the Wall Street Journal that “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.’ That sucks, but at least we would have been able to budget around it.”
Ms. Veatch and her husband, Matthew Veatch, are both disabled veterans. The sudden lack of planned-for prize money now has them scrambling financially.
“We’re literally in a worse spot now than we were when we won,” Mr. Veatch told the New York Times.
