Personal Finance

How to Earn Dividends On Your Savings with PrizePool

Editor's Note

You can trust the integrity of our balanced, independent financial advice. We may, however, receive compensation from the issuers of some products mentioned in this article. Opinions are the author's alone. This content has not been provided by, reviewed, approved or endorsed by any advertiser, unless otherwise noted below.

Earning interest in a savings account is sweet, but receiving a bonus on top of that is better.

Traditional savings accounts allow you to earn pennies in interest, but prize-linked savings accounts like PrizePool offer a captivating way to boost your savings.

By boost, we mean BIG bucks–as in $10,000!

You have a chance at winning $10k every month when you save your money in a PrizePool high-yield savings account. Here’s how it works.

What Is PrizePool?

Take a savings account, add a lottery, and PrizePool is born. PrizePool is a bank account with a mission to “incentivize Americans to build a better financial foundation” by making it easier and more exciting to save your dough.

But why a lottery? Research shows Americans love to buy lottery tickets. In 2019 alone, U.S. consumers spent more than $91 billion on lottery tickets with incredibly low odds of giving a payout.

With PrizePool, every dollar you save gets you another ticket for the drawing, increasing your odds to score a cash prize. It’s a win-win situation. You win by saving money and might even win $10k.

How to Earn Dividends on Your Savings With Prizepool

When you put your extra cash in a basic savings account, it earns a meager rate of interest and barely grows at all. PrizePool believes your savings should do more for you.

PrizePool offers two ways to grow your money and have your savings pay “dividends.”

First, you’ll earn a 0.30% annual percentage yield on your PrizePool savings account.

That interest rate beats the rates many big banks offer by ten times or more, making PrizePool’s worst-case scenario much better than the alternatives.

Second, the weekly drawings supercharge your savings. You can win as much as $10,000 in a single drawing, even if you have $1 in your account. Winning a smaller prize, like $10 or $100, is still a significant boost to your savings.

PrizePool Features

Here’s what we like about PrizePool.

Weekly Prize Drawings

You have the opportunity to win money every single week. As of this writing, PrizePool has given out $1 million in prize drawings!

When you put money into PrizePool’s prize-linked savings account, you’ll earn one ticket for every $1 you save. You earn tickets every day, so if you have $100 in your account, you’ll earn 100 tickets each day. Your tickets give you a chance to win that week’s prize drawing, which happens each Friday.

On Friday, PrizePool gives out nearly 6,000 cash prizes to its customers. The more tickets you have, the more likely you are to win.

Every four weeks, there’s a $10,000 grand prize up for grabs. Whether you have $1 saved or $1,000 saved, you have a chance to win the cash prize.

Savings Bonus

Even if you don’t win the weekly drawing, PrizePool wants to encourage saving. That’s why PrizePool offers 0.30% interest on your balance on top of any prizes you win.

This interest rate is higher than rates offered by many brick-and-mortar banks, giving you a reason to use PrizePool even if the idea of cash prizes doesn’t excite you.

PrizePool has paid out $41,900 in savings bonuses since March 2021.

PrizePool Debit Card

In the coming months, PrizePool plans to release a debit card, giving savers a way to access their money more efficiently and increase their odds of winning a drawing.

Every time you spend $1 using your debit card, PrizePool will award you 30 tickets for that week’s drawing.

Plus, you have a chance to get a purchase reimbursed every time you use your PrizePool debit card. PrizePool randomly selects debit card transactions each day to refund. Every transaction has a chance to win and there are no limits on how many transactions can get reimbursed or how many reimbursements a person can receive. Though, there is a limit of $2,000 per purchase.

The card also includes other typical debit card features such as price protection from MasterCard and security tools, like the option to lock your card from the app and zero liability fraud protection.

Keep an eye on this feature as PrizePool expands the debit card rewards program in the coming months.

FDIC Insurance

If you’re saving your cash, you want to ensure that nothing will happen to it.

This is why PrizePool is better than the lottery. The service is all about saving, not spending your money on chances to win. You won’t lose money from your account if you don’t win that week’s drawing.

Second, the accounts you deposit your money into are all fully-insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The FDIC offers protection to savings account balances up to $250,000. That makes PrizePool just as safe as any other traditional savings account.

Refer a Friend Bonus

Winning is more fun when you do it with friends. That’s why PrizePool offers a great-refer a-friend bonus.

PrizePool has paid out $92,500 in referral bonuses to date.

You won’t get an upfront payment when you get a friend to join PrizePool, but if your friend wins a prize, they’ll get an automatic boost of 10% to their winnings. For example, if they win $100 in a drawing, PrizePool will deposit $110 to their account.

On top of that, for referring them, you’ll also get a bonus of 10% of whatever they win. That means you’ll get a $10 bonus too.

These referral bonuses never expire, so you have the chance to win alongside your friend for as long as you both keep using PrizePool.

No Fees or Minimum Balances

Sometimes, banks make it hard to start saving by adding restrictions and minimum balance requirements to their savings accounts.

Many banks also charge monthly fees to keep accounts open. You can often avoid these fees, but you have to jump through hoops to do so. For example, you might have to deposit at least $25 a month or have a balance of at least $500 to avoid a $5 monthly fee.

How can your savings account be safe if fees slowly eat away your balance?

PrizePool has no minimum balance requirement and charges no fees. The only requirement is that you need to have at least $1 in your account to earn tickets for the weekly prize drawings.

Get PrizePool

Is Prizepool a Legit Savings App? – Here’s What Others Are Saying About It

Yes, PrizePool is a legit savings app. The company is partnered with Evolve Bank & Trust to offer FDIC-insured savings accounts. There’s virtually no risk of saving your money with PrizePool because the FDIC guarantees to reimburse you if the company is, for any reason, unable to return your deposits.

The Wall Street Journal covered PrizePool in 2020, discussing how it can serve as a substitute for American’s lottery spending, turning that into savings instead.

PrizePool also has plenty of positive customer testimonials on its website. Here’s a look a what you’ll find:

“PrizePool makes putting money in a savings account actually fun and worthwhile. With interest rates so low, it’s a no-brainer – and I love having shots at grand prizes!” – Humphrey Yang (PrizePool user)

“This app has been nothing but an easy and fun way to save. I was getting nothing from a regular savings account. I just do automatic weekly deposits. Tickets add to the account and the drawing every Friday. My savings have been earning over 8% so far. And it’s FDIC insured. Glad we finally have this in the US like they have had in Europe for years.” – Notrub325 (PrizePool user)

Bottom Line

PrizePool takes a different approach to saving than most bank accounts. On top of paying a flat, high-interest rate, the company makes saving fun by awarding cash prizes in weekly drawings.

If you’re looking for a way to have fun while saving and a ton of chances to win big money, PrizePool is for you.

TJ Porter

TJ Porter

TJ is a Boston-based freelance writer who specializes in credit, credit cards and bank accounts. In his spare time, he enjoys reading, writing, cooking, playing games (of the video and board varieties), soccer, and ultimate frisbee. You can find his work on his website, tjporterwriting.com.


Recommended Stories