# BRD-281 — Sweepstakes brands are not carried

> A brand whose business is sweepstakes must not be registered for A2P messaging.

- **Rule ID:** BRD-281
- **Layer:** Brand (`BRAND`)
- **Checks:** `brand.vertical + brand fields + website content`
- **Severity:** BLOCKING — Breaking this rule gets the submission rejected outright.
- **When it bites:** Gates approval — get this wrong and registration is refused
- **How it is detected:** AI judgement over the crawled website or policy page
- **Fix type:** Hard stop — not remediable, resubmission will not help
- **Required by:** AWS, Bandwidth
- **Applies:** Applies to every 10DLC registration.
- **Canonical URL:** https://ekas.io/rules/10dlc/brand/brd-281/

## Why this rule exists

Sweepstakes messaging carries both a high complaint rate and real regulatory complexity — the rules differ by state and the prize claim is a natural phishing vector — so the category is excluded at the brand. TCR publishing a SWEEPSTAKE use case makes this genuinely confusing: the use case exists and is gated separately, and selecting it does not make the brand eligible.

## How to fix it

A sweepstakes business cannot be registered. Where an ordinary business runs an occasional promotion, keep the brand and the campaign about the business rather than about the draw, and expect the draw itself to need the separately gated use case.

## Notes

Decided from the website, which is why this is CRAWL rather than a form judgement — a sweepstakes operator rarely describes itself that way in the brand fields. Note that `use_case=SWEEPSTAKE` exists at TCR and is gated on its own terms; holding it does not make an ineligible brand eligible.