New Year's Eve Sweepstakes: Where to Enter Legitimately

If you want to enter a New Year's Eve sweepstakes right now, the safest places are the sponsors' own entry pages: the Indiana Pacers' New Year's Eve Lexus Loft Sweepstakes, the Nashville New Year's Eve Sweepstakes presented by Crav'n Flavor, and Coca-Cola's 2026 Holiday Social Sweepstakes. All three are free to enter, all three publish official rules, and all three close within the next seven weeks. "Legitimately" comes down to one test the Federal Trade Commission states plainly: a real prize costs you nothing.

Everything below is tied to the sponsor's own rules page, with the entry window, the eligibility limits, and the catch — because the catch is usually in the rules, not the ad.

Verification note: Program terms and availability can change. This page was checked against linked sources on November 13, 2026.

Three New Year's Eve sweepstakes open right now

The Pacers' New Year's Eve Lexus Loft Sweepstakes is open online only at pacers.com/sweeps, with entry running from November 3, 2026 at 10:00 AM to December 22, 2026 at 5:00 PM Indianapolis time. It is one entry per person and limited to Indiana residents 18 and older. According to the Pacers' official rules, the prize is four Lexus Loft Loge Box tickets to the December 31, 2026 Pacers–Orlando Magic game at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, with a total retail value of $2,495.00 and a drawing on or about December 23, 2026.

The Nashville New Year's Eve Sweepstakes presented by Crav'n Flavor closes earlier, on December 13, 2026 at 11:59 PM Central. Visit Music City, the destination marketing organization for Nashville, runs it for U.S. residents 21 and older with no purchase required.

The grand prize is a trip to Jack Daniel's New Year's Eve Live: Nashville's Big Bash — round-trip coach airfare for two, three nights at the Omni Hotel, and two viewing passes, valid through January 2, 2027. Coca-Cola's 2026 Holiday Social Sweepstakes is the longest window of the three. It runs from 10:00 AM ET on November 2, 2026 to 11:59 PM ET on December 31, 2026, for U.S.

residents 18 and older. The single grand prize, per Coca-Cola's official rules, is a Fairbanks, Alaska trip including air, hotel, rental car and a Northern Lights tour, with an approximate retail value of $4,650 and a drawing on or about January 4, 2027.

What "no purchase necessary" actually gets you

"No purchase necessary" means the sponsor must offer a free way in. It does not mean the prize is free of cost or that entering is effortless. Coca-Cola's free route is a mailed entry: hand-print your details on a plain 3"x5" index card, postmarked by January 4, 2027 and received by January 11, 2027.

That alternate route is also capped. Coca-Cola limits entry to one per person for the entire promotion period regardless of method, and using multiple accounts voids the extras. So mailing a card on top of an online entry does not double your odds — it is the same single entry, just a different door.

The Pacers sweepstakes applies the same one-per-person ceiling with no mail option at all; it is online only. Reading the entry limit before you plan your week is the difference between a two-minute task and a pointless stack of index cards.

The costs that survive the word "free"

A won trip is taxable income, and the sponsor does not absorb it. The Pacers rules state the prize is non-transferable and that the winner owes the taxes — on a $2,495.00 ticket package, that is a real bill arriving months after the game. The Coca-Cola prize at $4,650 carries the same structure.

Non-transferable matters as much as taxes. It means you cannot sell the Pacers tickets, hand them to a friend who lives closer, or swap the date. If you win and cannot attend the December 31 game, the prize is worth nothing to you.

Trip prizes carry travel windows too. The Nashville package is valid through January 2, 2027 — a fixed holiday weekend, not a voucher you redeem in spring. Before entering a trip sweepstakes, check whether you could actually go on the only dates offered.

How to tell a real sweepstakes from a payment scam

The FTC's test is a single line, and it does not have exceptions. The FTC's consumer advice on fake prize scams states that real prizes are free, and that anyone asking you to pay "taxes," "shipping and handling," or "processing fees" to release a prize is a scammer. It is also illegal to ask you to pay to improve your odds of winning.

The FTC lists several other markers worth memorizing: Note the distinction between that and legitimate tax liability. A real sponsor reports the prize value and leaves you to pay the IRS; a scammer asks you to send money to them before the prize moves. Money flowing toward the sponsor is the signal.

Demands for payment can be reported at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

• A sweepstakes mailing must disclose that no payment is required to enter or win.
• A mailing may not call you a winner unless you have actually won.
• Requests to pay by wire transfer or gift card number are sure signs of a scam.
• The FTC never gives, certifies, or verifies prizes, so anyone invoking the agency as proof is lying.

Before you enter, check these five things

The rules page answers every question the promotional graphic skips. Work through it in this order: When two official pages from the same sponsor disagree, enter well before the earlier of the two dates. That costs you nothing and removes the ambiguity entirely.

• **Eligibility by residence and age.** The Pacers sweepstakes is Indiana residents only, 18+. Nashville's is U.S. residents 21 and older — a higher age floor than most, because the prize is tied to a whiskey-branded event.
• **The real deadline.** Entry periods end at a specific hour in a specific time zone: 5:00 PM Indianapolis time for the Pacers, 11:59 PM Central for Nashville, 11:59 PM ET for Coca-Cola.
• **Entry limit.** One per person is common, and duplicate accounts can void your entries rather than add to them.
• **Drawing date.** The Pacers draw on or about December 23, 2026; Coca-Cola draws on or about January 4, 2027. That tells you when to expect contact and when silence means you did not win.
• **Date consistency.** Sponsor pages and their linked rules documents can fall out of sync. The rules page linked from the Visit Music City sweepstakes still showed the prior year's December 8, 2025 deadline, while the live sweepstakes page gives December 13, 2026.

A fourth option if you are entering for the event itself

SiriusXM's Mindi Abair Wine & Jazz "Ring in 2027" sweepstakes closes first of any listed here — entries are due by November 30, which is seventeen days from today. The prize is a trip for two with round-trip coach airfare to San Diego, two nights at Loews Coronado Bay Resort from December 30, 2026 to January 1, 2027, and two Cabernet Package tickets. The December 30–January 1 hotel block is the whole prize structure: it is built around attending the event, not around a flexible stay.

If those two nights do not work, the package does not convert into anything else. Entry details and eligibility sit on SiriusXM's own sweepstakes page at siriusxm.com/sweepstakes. With a November 30 cutoff, this is the one to handle this month rather than filing away for December.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I enter the same sweepstakes more than once to improve my odds?

Not in these. Coca-Cola limits entry to one per person for the entire period regardless of method, and using multiple accounts voids the extras. The Pacers sweepstakes is also one entry per person.

Separately, the FTC says it is illegal for anyone to ask you to pay to improve your odds of winning.

Does entering by mail give me better chances than entering online?

No. Coca-Cola's mail route — a hand-printed 3"x5" index card, postmarked by January 4, 2027 and received by January 11, 2027 — exists so that no purchase is required, not to create a second entry. It counts as the same single entry.

Who pays the taxes if I win a trip or tickets?

You do. The Pacers rules state the winner owes the taxes and that the prize is non-transferable. That is normal and legal.

What is not legal is a party demanding you pay them "taxes" or "fees" to release a prize — the FTC identifies that as a scam.

What should I do if someone contacts me claiming I won one of these?

Check the drawing date in the sponsor's own rules first — the Pacers draw on or about December 23, 2026 and Coca-Cola on or about January 4, 2027, so a win notice before then is a red flag. If the contact asks for a wire transfer or gift card number, report it at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.