Title: Fantasy sports site + subscriptions + prizes: which of these models would Stripe actually allow?
Hey all, looking for anyone with advice or real experience here before I apply.
I run a small fantasy sports site in a niche market with a few thousand users. It's free to play right now. For future seasons, I wanted to add an optional paid tier (no more than $25/year) to cover hosting, dev costs, and my time.
My original idea was to create an optional paid league where users could enter and compete for a year-end grand prize. I recently learned that Stripe's prohibited list includes "fantasy sports leagues with a monetary or material prize." So I'm trying to figure out where the line actually sits, or whether just being a fantasy sports site rules us out no matter how we set things up.
Here are the three models I'm considering:
Option 1: Subscription + prizes, open to everyone
- Paid tier unlocks extra features
- Paying gets you no advantage for winning/prizes
- Season-end prize(s) go to top finisher(s)
- Free users are eligible for the same prizes on equal terms
Option 2: Subscription + sponsor-provided prizes only, open to everyone
- Same as Option 1, but every prize comes from a sponsor (e.g. a brand that gives gear to winners in exchange for advertising)
- No subscription revenue goes toward prizes
- Free users are equally eligible for prizes.
Option 3: Subscription, no prizes at all
- Paid tier unlocks features only
My personal qualm is that I never wanted to force people to pay to play, but I also was looking for a reasonable way to at least cover my own costs.
My questions:
- Has anyone gotten Stripe approval for something similar? Did they ask for anything specific (official rules, a "no purchase necessary" clause, geo-restrictions)?
- Is Option 3 the only truly safe path?
- Did anyone get shut down after launching, even with a free-entry setup?
- Or does Stripe treat fantasy sports as off-limits across the board, even for a plain feature subscription with no prizes?
To be clear, I'm planning to reach out to Stripe Sales directly. I'm posting here first to hear from anyone who's actually been through this. Thanks!