Dynamic awarding of prizes in chance-based contests

摘要

Techniques are described for facilitating the awarding of prizes in chance-based contests in various ways, such as chance-based contests which are part of promotional advertising, etc. In at least some embodiments, the techniques include facilitating the awarding of prizes at the time a contestant enter or plays the contests, while awarding a selected number of prizes, which may be determined before the contest starts. In at least some embodiments, the techniques include employing an award counter to control awarding of prizes in a chance-based contest. For example, an award counter may be incremented at random or pseudo-random times. In at least some embodiments, the contest is associated with a location-based virtual group of users that has one or more associated geographical areas.

主权项

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:
receiving, by one or more configured computing systems, an indication of a contest entry to a contest; and responding, by the one or more configured computing systems, to the indication of the contest entry by:
accessing a contest-definition database to determine a current value of a contest award counter associated with the contest, the contest award counter being a value stored in the contest-definition database, and the value of the contest award counter being incremented at a random or pseudo-random time;determining an award result associated with the indication of the contest entry, the award result based on the determined current value of the contest award counter and comprising either an indication of a prize or an indication of no prize; andin an instance in which the award result comprises the indication of the prize, updating the contest award counter.