Gamify Your Savings With a Prize Pool Bank Account
A new savings account with a prize pool called Yotta Savings has sparked interest among users of Redditors and the Doctor of Credit blog. According to his website , Yotta wants to help Americans become more financially secure by “making instant savings fun.” The company says the concept comes from premium bonds – the largest savings product in the UK – which offers bondholders the opportunity to win £ 1 million every month.
Yotta is one of several Prize-Tied Savings Accounts (PLSA) in the United States, each of which offers the opportunity to win money based on your deposits. Other popular PLSAs include Save to Win , Lucky Savers, and WINCentive . Walmart also offers a similar program .
How Yotta works
Yotta partners with Evolve Bank & Trust , an FDIC insured bank, to keep your money. This means that Yotta is the software and customer support reseller. For every $ 25 deposit, you receive a recurring ticket to the weekly Yotta raffle, where you can win cash prizes ranging from $ 0.10 million to $ 10 million.
Your money also earns a 0.20% “savings bonus” that acts like interest. According to data DepositAccounts, it is close to the average for the national savings account at the level of 0.191%, but according to Ken Tumina, founder and editor DepositAccounts, it is only one-fifth of the average 1% of savings accounts online .
“With the current low interest rates, it takes a lot of deposits to get a big prize,” says Tumin. This may be why the odds of winning the $ 10 million prize are extremely low – 1 in 3,277,899,625 , according to Yotta’s official rules .
While some Reddit users say Yotta is offering higher bonuses including winnings right now, there is no guarantee the offer will continue.
Final verdict
“If you play the lottery regularly and feel like you can replace the lottery with Yotta, it might be worth giving Yotta a try,” says Tumin. “The money that goes into your Yotta account is much better than the money that is used to buy lottery tickets.” Otherwise, you may be better off opening another online bank account with higher interest rates.