How to run a World Cup sweepstake for a remote or hybrid team

The challenge with remote sweepstakes

Traditional sweepstakes rely on being in the same place: passing a hat around, collecting cash over a desk, writing names on a whiteboard. None of that translates to a hybrid team without someone spending a disproportionate amount of time chasing people on Slack and trying to make a spreadsheet work across time zones.

The digital sweepstake solves this completely. One person sets it up. Everyone gets a link. Nobody needs to be in the same building — or even the same country.

Setting up a remote-friendly sweepstake

Create your sweepstake on playdrawr. Add everyone by name — include email addresses so the system notifies participants of their team assignment automatically.

Run the draw at a set time and share it publicly — drop the link in your main team Slack channel, your team WhatsApp group, and your company all-hands update. The share link works on any device, no login needed. Someone checks it on their commute at 7am, someone else checks it from their home office at 9am — same leaderboard, same draw, same experience.

Running the draw live on a video call

The draw is the moment the sweepstake becomes real. For remote teams, replicate the atmosphere of a live draw by screen-sharing it on a Zoom or Teams call.

If some people can't make the call, the draw results are visible the moment the leaderboard link is opened — they won't miss out, they'll just get their moment of discovery slightly later.

Making it feel like an event remotely

The hardest part of a remote sweepstake isn't the logistics — it's the atmosphere. You can recreate the draw night energy digitally:

• Run a short Zoom or Teams call for the draw reveal — share your screen and let people watch the teams being assigned live
• Drop a message in Slack when draw results are ready: "Results are in — [link] — who drew England?"
• Create a dedicated sweepstake channel in Slack or Teams where people can post reactions and talk football for eight weeks
• Send a mid-tournament leaderboard update when the group stage ends — one message, the link, and a brief commentary on who's leading

Handling different time zones

The 2026 World Cup is hosted across the USA, Mexico, and Canada — which means kick-off times range from early afternoon to late evening UK time. For international teams, this can be a genuine advantage: someone in the US gets prime-time matches, someone in Europe gets early evening games.

The leaderboard is asynchronous by nature — it updates after every match regardless of when people are watching. A colleague in Singapore checking results at 8am their time sees the same standings as someone in London checking at midnight. No organiser input required between updates.

For the draw itself, pick a time that works for the majority and accept that a few people will check the results asynchronously. Make the leaderboard link the canonical source of truth and post it somewhere persistent — pinned in Slack, linked in the team wiki — rather than relying on people catching a particular message.

Payment for remote teams

Without being able to collect cash at a desk, you have a few options:

• Bank transfer to the organiser's personal account before the draw
• A shared payment app like Monzo, Revolut, or PayPal — these all support sending money with a reference
• Company-funded prize (zero payment faff, just a prize from the business)
• PayRequest or similar link-based payment tools if you want to keep money separate from personal accounts

The golden rule is the same whether in-person or remote: nobody draws a team until they've paid. playdrawr's payment tracking lets you mark each participant as paid or unpaid, so you always know where you are before running the draw.

For a company-funded prize — where the business covers the prize rather than participants contributing — payment collection is not needed at all. It's a good option for teams where collecting money from colleagues feels awkward or where international transfers add friction.

Keeping remote participants engaged throughout the tournament

playdrawr's leaderboard is live and shareable — anyone can check standings at any time from anywhere. That accessibility is the engine of engagement for remote teams: there's no physical board to walk past, so the link needs to be front and centre.

Post weekly leaderboard updates in your team channel. Announce when teams get knocked out. Celebrate quarter-final qualifications. The World Cup 2026 runs for about eight weeks — that's a long time to keep a group chat active with football chat, but the sweepstake gives people a personal stake in every match.

Even participants who aren't football fans tend to engage with a sweepstake — the random draw means anyone can be in contention, and the leaderboard creates genuine suspense that doesn't require football knowledge to follow.

The remote sweepstake as team-building

Eight weeks of sporadic football chat is one of the better forms of low-effort team building available to remote managers. It creates a shared conversational thread that cuts across departments, seniority levels, and football knowledge. Someone who normally talks only about their immediate work suddenly has something to discuss with the whole company.

The sweepstake is the structure that makes this happen naturally — it gives people a reason to check in, a shared reference point, and a harmless competitive outlet. For remote and hybrid teams, that kind of incidental connection is genuinely valuable and genuinely hard to manufacture any other way.