Why can students in some US states not apply for this Blizzard competition?

littleclaude

Hi 

I had a quick check at this competition and noticed that some places in the US and Canada can not apply? I am not up on the rules, politics and regulations that go on in the US/Canada so can someone explain why this is the case? I am just interested that's all.

"Residents of North Dakota, Vermont, Connecticut, Maryland, and Quebec are not eligible to participate."

Link - https://careers.blizzard.com/en-us/students/contests 

RobeOmega

Did a little Googling around on this, so forgive me if I give incorrect information. Some places have laws that restrict certain types of competitions. For example apparently:

"Quebec has a lot of rules about contests and sweepstakes, most notably, if the contest holder is not a business in Quebec, they have to provide a security deposit with the regulators to assure it's not a scam."

littleclaude

RobeOmega said:

Did a little Googling around on this, so forgive me if I give incorrect information. Some places have laws that restrict certain types of competitions. For example apparently:

"Quebec has a lot of rules about contests and sweepstakes, most notably, if the contest holder is not a business in Quebec, they have to provide a security deposit with the regulators to assure it's not a scam."

Cool, thanks for that. It's all very odd.

JEmerson

In the United States, many laws and restrictions are placed on a state-by-state basis. For a US Company (such as Blizzard) to conduct business within those states, including holding competitions, it must adhere to the law of each state. That is why often times you will see restrictions (on everything) on a state by state basis.

Mark Dygert

Yep, the same list of places are listed in ads for lotteries, sweepstakes, drawings, contests. Basically they don't want gambling and they prohibit their residents from profiting in any way from "games of chance/skill". 

Most states in the US have some pretty tough laws when it comes to gambling because it is so easy for it to get out of hand and cause a lot of problems. It also has a history of organized crime, drugs, human trafficking and just pain in the ass grifters. The ones with the toughest laws usually have some very specific event they where grappling with and people kept finding loop holes so they went uber strict.

Unfortunately broad laws tend to also keep out honest opportunities.