Sales promotion plan a lottery
69 F.T.C. 1220 · Apr. 30, 1966 · Digest No. 40
source volume section (69 F.T.C. 1220)
Text is machine-OCR of the printed volume and may contain errors. Advisory opinions are the Commission's views on proposed conduct, not binding orders.
No. 40. . Sales promotion plan a lottery. The Federal Trade Commission announced today that it has advised processor of a grocery item that its proposed sales promotion plan wou1d constitute a lottery and its use would be actionable under Section 5 of the FTC Act. Under the p1an, the concern proposed to insert at random either certificates of no value or of varying l'edeemable cash va1ues in containers of its product to be sold at retail. At the time of retail sale, equiva1ent certificates in equal proportions would be made avaiJable at wholesaJe distributors to the general pub1ic without cost or obligation.
The Commission said that "In our view the existence of the free certificates will not cure the diffculty presented by the transactions at the retail level which, standing alone, dearly involve a lottery in the sale of merchandise of a kind often heretofore made subject to a Commission order. " (File No. 633 7029, released Apr. 30, 1966.