How to run a Sweepstake for the NBA playoffs 2023

What are the NBA playoffs?

The National Basketball Association, otherwise known as the NBA, has two conferences - the Eastern and Western which are made up of 15 teams, each split into 3 divisions.

The top six teams in both the Eastern Conference and Western Conference, ranked by winning percentage, directly advance to the playoffs. Teams ranked seventh through tenth compete in the NBA ‘Play-In Tournament’ for the seventh and eighth seeds.

You may be wondering what a Play-In game is? Well let me explain….

The seventh- and eighth-place teams play each other in a qualification game, with the winner being given the opportunity to play as the seventh seed of the playoffs.

Meanwhile, the ninth- and tenth-place teams play each other in an elimination game, with the loser being eliminated. The winner of this game then plays the loser of the 7th and 8th placed match, with the winner of this game securing the 8th place in the playoffs.

That gives you 16 teams in the final playoffs - the 8 best teams from the Eastern and Western Conferences.

The number 1 ranked team in each conference plays the 8th ranked team. The 2nd plays the 7th, the 3rd the 6th etc… in a best of seven format until the two surviving teams from each competition eventually meet in the NBA finals to decide it all!

You will see an awesome sweepstake generator at the start of this blog which will be magically auto-populated once the regular season finishes with all 20 of the qualifying teams - we will discuss this in more detail shortly!

When are the NBA playoffs?

The 2022-23 NBA playoffs are set to begin on April 15, 2023 with the NBA finals starting on the 1st June. If all 7 games are needed to decide a winner, the final game would take place on the 18th June. Mark it in your diaries!

What is a sweepstake?

Firstly, let’s take a look at what a sweepstake is. A sweepstake is a contest usually based on major sporting events - the NBA Playoffs being a perfect example - where entrants pay an equal stake before being given a team at random. Each team involved is placed in a hat before being pulled out blindly to ensure a random selection. The ‘hat’ can be very literally a physical hat, or we have provided you with a generator at the top of this blog for you to use to allocate teams (this will be populated with the 20 teams once the regular season has finished).

This creates a ‘pot’ with the final amount up for grabs and for the NBA Playoffs, there are 20 initial teams. That’s an opportunity for 20 entry fees to be contributed to the pot. Don’t worry if you don’t have exactly 20 people to get involved though - you could offer everyone 2 picks for their entry fee for example, or if you have more than 40 people, don’t be shy about running more than one sweepstake simultaneously.

Following the event, the entrant who has the victorious team takes home the winnings (sometimes, the 2nd and 3rd place teams may also win a lesser amount of the total pot - depending how generous you want to be!).

How do I collect money for a sweepstake?

So you’ve got commitment from everyone, the teams are all ready to be selected from your physical/virtual hat, but before you go any further you need people to chip in their entry fee. None of this works without the prize money, right?
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This is the part where you may be scratching your head or preparing yourself for the dread that comes with chasing people up every single day for the entirety of the lead up to the playoffs to pay the entry fee you were promised days/weeks ago. It’s a surefire way to take the enjoyment out of something so fun. No matter how many reminders you send by WhatsApp, Slack, Teams, carrier pigeon, people still aren’t paying up. Especially if they get a team that is highly unlikely to win! Suddenly it becomes like getting blood out of a stone.
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The next problem comes in the slightly unusual form of actually receiving the money (yes, receiving money can actually cause a problem), as you receive 20 different payments to your personal bank account on different days and at different times. All of a sudden you’re losing track of who has and hasn’t paid and the admin to keep up with has become a full-time job. You may also have a hybrid way of working which means a number of people want to give you cash in the office instead.
Now you’ve got a mixture of random coins/notes in your hand that need to be cashed into your bank, payments in your bank account hidden amongst your personal transactions and the ongoing problem of some people who haven’t got around to paying you because setting up someone new to pay on their online banking and actually paying you has become a job for later, and then for tomorrow, and then for the day after…… (you get the point).

The easy way to collect money from a group of people

We’ve made it easy for you as an organiser to collect money and we’ve also made it super simple for contributors to pay into your pot. Setting up a Collctiv pot can be done in less than a minute and sharing the payment link or QR code with your group is even easier, no matter the channel you use to communicate.
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People use the link/QR code to access the payment screen and then tap to pay into your pot using their desired payment method, including ApplePay and GooglePay. They don’t need to download an app, sign up to anything or do any banking. Within a couple of taps and 10 seconds later you’ve got your money. It really is that simple.
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The money sits in the pot you’ve created for the specific event and can then be withdrawn to your bank account in a lump sum so it all remains ring fenced until you have the final amount in advance. Say goodbye to the time and effort that comes with scrolling through pages of lunch meal deals and morning coffees to find out if Paul from IT has actually paid the money he owes. Instead, you can track the total amount you’ve received along with the names of the people who have paid you.
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Take back control of your time. Take away the friction of payment. Take away the excuses. Get paid what you’re owed.
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Download Collctiv today to get started.

Organizers bring people together

Since 2019 Collctiv has helped over 400,000 people from 88 countries come together by making it simple for Organisers to collect money from groups. Whether it's gifts for teachers, group holidays or grassroots sports teams - download our free app today and start bringing people together!