It’s been six months since we launched PrizePool. This blog post is going to recap why we built PrizePool and highlight some statistics we thought would be interesting to our users. Our hope is to publish these statistics regularly and even build some of them into the app. We hope that this brings more transparency and clarity to our users.

The TL;DR is in our last Series, we paid out a realized APY of 7.5% — higher than any other savings product in the market today.

Why We Built PrizePool

The premise behind PrizePool is to help people save money by using a prize-linked savings concept. Large banks only pay 0.01% interest a year. That’s only $0.10 a year on a $1,000 balance! The goal of PrizePool is to help Americans save money in a more fun and exciting way compared to traditional savings accounts.

In 2016, Americans spent $116.9 billion on gambling. At the same time, Americans have one of the lowest savings rates in the world. Prize-linked savings has proven to be incredibly effective outside of the United States at getting people to save more. Nearly 40% of citizens in the UK participate in the British version of prize-linked savings. One study in South Africa found that their prize-linked savings offering increased average savings rates by 38%. We believe that making saving more fun and exciting will help Americans save more money than traditional methods and divert spending away from gambling.

Statistics Since Launch

Since launching in August, here are some high-level statistics on our prizes and winners:

1. Total prizes (drawing prizes and referral prizes) paid out: $332,332.36
   1. Total number of prizes: 84,049
   2. Total unique prize winners: 6,543
2. Total drawing prizes paid out: $300,345.00
   1. Total number of prizes: 42,090
   2. Total unique prize winners: 6,522
3. Total referral prizes paid out: $31,987.36
   1. Total number of prizes: 41,979
   2. Total unique referral prize winners: 3,287

Statistics on January 22nd to February 19th Series

Here’s a more detailed breakdown of the most recently completed series (January 22nd to February 19th).

1. Total prizes (drawing prizes and referral prizes) paid out: $61,273.68
   1. Total number of prizes: 34,608
   2. Total unique prize winners: 5,897
2. Total drawing prizes paid out: $52,712.00
   1. Total number of prizes: 42,090
   2. Total unique prize winners: 5,894
3. Total referral prizes paid out: $8,561.68
   1. Total number of prizes: 16,802
   2. Total unique referral prize winners: 3,030
4. Total tickets by week
   1. Week 1: 70,676,782
   2. Week 2: 143,834,504
   3. Week 3: 218,198,448
   4. Week 4: 293,637,897
5. Aggregate Average Balance: $10,500,887.29
6. Aggregate Realized APY: 7.5%
   1. This is calculated from total prizes paid out, divided by the aggregate average balance and annualized.

Simply put, there’s no better savings product than PrizePool. A realized APY of 7.5% is 750x what you would be getting at a large bank and beats even the best savings product on the market. We pay out a guaranteed PrizePool of $50,000 every 4 weeks and do not dangle nearly unattainable odds (e.g. Powerball).

Power of Referrals

Our top 7 referrers have made $18,616.85 on referral prizes. Aside from increasing your deposits, this is the easiest way to increase your ability to win. When you refer another user, you each get a 10% bonus on top of their prize winnings and currently has no expiration.

For example, if you refer your friend and they win $100. You each get an extra $10 referral prize.

Closing

Please let us know if you found this information useful and if there are any other statistics you’d like us to publish (whether in the app or in a subsequent blog post). You can reach us at support@getprizepool.com and feel free to download the apps here.