Virtual currency

Two currencies, one ledger

A sweepstakes product runs on two currencies that must never become interchangeable. One is bought and played and is worth nothing outside the game. The other cannot be bought at all, and is the only one that turns into a prize. Both sit in a single player record, with a hard line between them that has to hold on every write.

That line is not a feature. It is the reason the model is a promotion rather than gambling, which is why the architecture and the legal argument are the same subject — and why they are the two pages worth reading first.

Money in

Coins are sold in packages: a price, a quantity of Gold Coins, and a quantity of Sweeps Coins that comes with them. Nobody buys a Sweeps Coin — that is the point — but a purchase can be accompanied by one, and there is always a route to them that costs nothing.

How packages are structured, and what has to be true between a card being charged and coins appearing.

Money out

Sweeps Coins leave the system as prizes, under conditions the operator sets: a minimum balance, a hold, an identity check, and whatever the player’s state allows. Every one of those is a policy decision before it is a technical one.

How redemption works, and who performs which part of it.

Keeping them apart

Of everything in this cluster, the separation is the part that has to be right first, because it is the only one that cannot be retrofitted. A balance you can split later is a reporting problem; a transaction history where the currency was never recorded is an evidence problem, and it surfaces at the worst possible moment — when somebody asks you to prove a redemption was earned rather than bought.

Where the wiring is documented

This cluster is about the model. The protocol has its own home and this page does not duplicate it: the wallet callback reference carries the commands, the field shapes and the signature scheme, and the seamless wallet guide covers why a single-wallet model is the one that fits two currencies.