Xbox gamers blown away by surprise free store credit giveaway

Xbox gamers were blown away last week when the winner of a surprise free store credit giveaway was announced.

Microsoft Rewards frequently offers ways to reward people for using Bing and performing tasks on their products. You can earn points just for logging into Microsoft Edge, for example.

Gamers using Xbox can also earn points by playing games on Xbox Game Pass, by earning achievements, and other tasks.

South of Midnight releases on Xbox this week.

You can then redeem these points for special prizes or store credit for various places. You can also use a small amount of them to be entered into sweepstakes for larger prizes.

Late last year, Microsoft ran a sweepstake for Rewards users to win a million dollars. The promotion was held in October where users redeemed their hard-earned Rewards points for a chance to win a million dollars. The more points you redeemed, the better your chances.

Last week, the winner of the million dollar sweepstake was revealed as “Ron G.” from the US.

“Microsoft Rewards is just easier than other programs,” Ron G said. “I just wake up, use the Bing app and I get my points. You don't have to go out of your way to do anything difficult!”

Users over on the Microsoft Rewards Reddit page were quick to point out the irony of the quote.

“Not to be that skeptic, but the quote is total PR propaganda,” the top comment in the thread reads.

“We'd all say it for a million though,” wrote one of the replies. I mean, yeah, I get that.

Ron G himself even appeared in the thread. He’s apparently an active user of the Microsoft Rewards Reddit page, so it was a given that he’d show up to answer any questions.

“According to these rules I'm paying the taxes,” Ron G wrote when asked if Microsoft was covering tax for him or not. “I put that money aside in bonds and CDs that will mature next March to pay the taxes.”

US law states that cash prizes won in raffles and sweepstakes are the responsibility of the winner to pay taxes. So, sadly Microsoft haven’t been able to pay that for Ron G.

If you want a piece of the pie, be sure to keep an eye on Microsoft Rewards for more sweepstakes like this in the future.