One Brokerage Is Giving Away a Prize of $270K in Gold—Plus More Than 2,000 Smaller Bars. Is It Worth a Shot to Enter?

Inside the New Gold Giveaway: What Robinhood Is Actually Offering

As 2025 winds to a close, online brokerage Robinhood is marking the year with a glittering shot at physical gold. Its new sweepstakes will award one grand prize of 2,025 grams of gold, while 2,024 additional winners will each receive a 1-gram bar.

This isn’t the first time Robinhood has made a splash with shiny gold. Last month’s giveaway offered a 1,000-gram first prize—roughly half the size of today’s top award—while the 999 smaller prizes were 2.5-gram bars.

The current grand prize of 2,025 grams of gold is equivalent to about 65 troy ounces. Gold prices move constantly, but as of Tuesday, Dec. 9, that amount would be worth roughly $273,880. A 1-gram bar is worth about $136 at current prices.

The total value of all prizes will fluctuate with the price of gold, but with the metal trading near its highest price in over a century, these are sizable awards by any measure.

How To Enter and What You’d Need To Commit

To enter the sweepstakes through the standard method, you’ll need a Robinhood brokerage account, an active Robinhood Gold membership, and a W9 on file. That’s because most entries are earned through net deposits you make into a Robinhood brokerage account during the promotional period. Subscribing to Gold costs $5 per month or $50 per year, and your membership must be active as of 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on Dec. 17 to qualify.

You’ll receive one entry for every dollar you deposit, and you can make multiple deposits throughout the sweepstakes window. Withdrawals work in the opposite direction—they reduce your total entries—so your funds must remain in your account until at least Dec. 17 to count. There’s also a cap of 1,002,000 entries per person.

But you don’t need a Robinhood account—or a Gold membership—if you’re willing to enter by mail. Each valid mail-in entry is worth 3,000 sweepstakes entries as long as it’s received by the deadline and meets the official requirements. Full instructions are listed in Robinhood’s sweepstakes rules.

Is It Worth Moving Your Money for a Shot at Gold?

If you’re already a Robinhood Gold member, entering the giveaway is largely about moving some cash into your brokerage account and making sure it stays put beyond Dec. 17. With the holding period so close, any interest your money would miss out on will barely be noticeable.

For those who aren’t already Gold members, the calculation is different. Unless you opt for the snail-mail entry method, you’ll need to join Robinhood Gold at $5 per month or $50 per year to qualify for deposit-based entries. The membership comes with several perks—like a 3.50% return on uninvested cash, a 3% match on IRA contributions (with a one-year holding requirement to earn the match and a five-year holding requirement to avoid a potential Early IRA Match Removal Fee), lower mortgage rates, and access to Morningstar research. But the value depends entirely on whether you’d use those features.

Because you can cancel Gold after one month, it’s possible to enter the sweepstakes with just that $5 cost plus the effort of moving funds into your Robinhood account. Whether that’s worth it comes down to how much you want a shot at the gold prizes—and how much you’re able and willing to tie up your funds until Dec. 17.

As with any sweepstakes, though, it’s important to stay grounded: The odds of winning even a 1-gram gold bar are extremely small. If you don’t find the benefits of Gold membership or a Robinhood brokerage account appealing on their own merits, the giveaway alone might not be worth the hassle.