Two currencies, one wallet, zero confusion — that is the promise of the Tao Fortune coin model. Gold Coins are the entertainment token you play with for fun. Sweeps Coins are the promotional token you collect alongside a purchase, or free through mail-in and daily bonuses, and redeem for CAD prizes. This page decodes the ratios, the safeguards and the maths.
Gold Coins (GC)
Entertainment currency. No cash value. Used to play for fun.
Sweeps Coins (SC)
Promotional currency. Redeem 1 SC for CAD 1 at 25 SC minimum.
Mail-in route
3×5 in postcard = free SC. Details on our terms page.
Daily bonuses
Free GC every 4 h, plus 0.5 SC on login streaks past day three.
Coin package composition — GC included vs bonus SC
Wallet at-a-glance
| Concept | Ratio / limit | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| GC purchase ratio | CAD 4.99 → 500 K GC | Base tier |
| Bonus SC per purchase | 2–10 SC per CAD 5 | Studio-dependent |
| SC → CAD | 1 : 1 | At redemption |
| Minimum redemption | 25 SC | Interac / Skrill / wire |
| Daily free GC | 5 000 – 7 200 | Streak-scaled |
Gold Coins — the fun sandbox
Gold Coins power the entertainment layer of the Tao Fortune casino homepage. They cannot be redeemed for anything. They cannot be traded. They exist so that you can enjoy Push Gaming's fastest Megaways at 120 FPS without worrying about your wallet. Every new account arrives at Tao Fortune with 100 000 Gold Coins on the house, and the daily bonus pays another 5 000 – 7 200 depending on your login streak. If you spend all your GC on a bad run of Panda Wildfire, no problem — mail us a postcard and you get another top-up. This is why the sweepstakes exemption exists: nothing you do in Gold Coin mode is gambling in the legal sense.
Because Gold Coins have no cash value, the studios treat them as an unlimited testbed. Bonus Buy costs are lower in GC-only builds. Volatility caps are relaxed. High-limit rooms open earlier. If you are experimenting with a new mechanic — say, the cascading grid on Hacksaw's newest title — start in GC mode, test the base-game hit frequency for a few hundred spins, and only switch to Sweeps Coin play once you understand the maths. Every Gold Coin session logs to the same replay engine as SC play, so you can review your spins in the customer support portal even if no cash was on the line.
| Tier | Price (CAD) | Gold Coins | Bonus Sweeps |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | 4.99 | 500 000 | 2.00 |
| Bronze | 9.99 | 1 500 000 | 8.00 |
| Silver | 19.99 | 4 000 000 | 24.00 |
| Gold | 49.99 | 10 000 000 | 55.00 |
| Platinum | 99.99 | 25 000 000 | 130.00 |
| Diamond | 199.99 | 60 000 000 | 300.00 |
Free Sweeps Coins per week by acquisition path
Sweeps Coins — the promotional layer
Sweeps Coins are where sweepstakes casinos justify their name. A Sweeps Coin has a fixed one-to-one value against the Canadian dollar. When you buy a Gold Coin package you receive a bonus quantity of Sweeps Coins as a promotional add-on — you never pay for Sweeps Coins directly, which is what keeps the model on the correct side of the promotional-contest law. You can also earn Sweeps Coins for free through five routes: daily login bonuses, referral credit, contest participation, mail-in postcards and select responsible-gaming milestones. Details are documented on the sweepstakes 101 guide.
Free SC growth over a typical Canadian season
Redemption ladder
| Range | Path | Median payout |
|---|---|---|
| 25 – 249 SC | Interac e-Transfer | 4 h |
| 250 – 999 SC | Interac / Skrill | 10 h |
| 1 000 – 4 999 SC | Skrill or wire | 18 h |
| 5 000 SC+ | Wire (T5 issued) | 48 h |
Safeguards baked into the coin economy
The coin model has three built-in safeguards that many sweepstakes brands quietly ignore. First, Gold Coins and Sweeps Coins live in separate wallet columns; there is no accidental swap. Second, every purchase confirmation shows both currencies explicitly, and the invoice PDF from cash-out banking rails follows the same split. Third, the platform blocks any transaction that would let a single account cross the CAD 999 monthly spend threshold without a soft-check pause — the pause opens a two-minute educational overlay that reminds you of your redemption ratio and offers a shortcut to the responsible-play control panel. None of this is regulator-required in Canada yet; we implemented it because it is the right posture for a sweepstakes brand that plans to be here in five years.
Mail-in Sweeps Coin request — the letter route
- Handwrite your username, first and last name, and mailing address on a 3×5 in postcard.
- Send it to the address published on our terms of service page — postage is at your expense.
- Within 7 business days we credit 5 Sweeps Coins to your wallet.
- You can send one postcard per calendar week per household. Multiple entries from the same address are consolidated.
Where free Sweeps Coins come from (30-day average)
Frequently asked questions
Can I buy Sweeps Coins directly?
No. Direct sale of Sweeps Coins would undermine the sweepstakes exemption. SC come as free promotional add-ons to Gold Coin purchases, or through the mail-in route.
Do Sweeps Coins expire?
Unused Sweeps Coins expire after 180 days of account inactivity. Log in once a month and the expiry clock resets.
Is the daily bonus taxable?
No — daily promotional credits are considered prize income and are not taxed until redeemed for CAD 500+ in a calendar year. See our cash-out banking rails for the T5 threshold.
Can I gift Sweeps Coins to a friend?
SC cannot be transferred between accounts. You can send a friend a referral link that credits them 5 SC on their first login.
What happens if I win a jackpot on SC?
The full jackpot value credits to your SC balance and you can redeem in the same session, subject to the 25 SC minimum. Jackpots above CAD 25 000 unlock a courtesy call with a redemption specialist.
The two-currency model looks intimidating on first read but the arithmetic is friendly once you use it. Gold Coins for fun, Sweeps Coins for prizes, and both trip-checked by the same audited RNG that powers the sweepstakes slot library. If anything on this page is unclear, the help centre live chat is staffed around the clock and can walk you through the wallet on a shared screen if you like.
Historical context — the two-currency model, since 2013
The two-currency model was pioneered in the United States around 2013 by a handful of Chumba-adjacent operators looking for a legal way to run casino-style games without a state-by-state gaming licence. It arrived in Canada in earnest around 2020 and has grown quickly, driven by the convenience of Interac and the friendliness of Canadian consumer-protection law. The core insight of the model is simple: separate the entertainment layer (Gold Coins) from the prize layer (Sweeps Coins) so that the entertainment layer can be sold like any other consumer good, while the prize layer sits under the promotional-contest exemption. Tao Fortune's implementation refines this by publishing every ratio and every daily-bonus amount up-front. Nothing about the model is hidden behind marketing language.
Canadians are unusually well-served by this model because Canadian consumer law already handles promotional contests robustly. The mail-in postcard route is not a novelty — it is the same legal mechanism McDonalds uses when it runs Monopoly, and the same one Tim Hortons uses for its Roll Up the Rim promotions. All Tao Fortune did was digitise the contest, extend its duration to "always on", and layer a full sweepstakes slot library on top. The federal contest registration on our terms of service page spells this out.
Streak mechanics — how daily bonuses scale
Daily bonuses have a streak multiplier that starts at 1.0× on your first login and climbs by 0.04× each consecutive day until it caps at 1.4× on day eleven. Miss a day and the multiplier resets to 1.0×. On average a player who logs in every day for a month collects 34 % more free Gold Coins and 41 % more free Sweeps Coins than a player who logs in every other day. This is designed to reward habit rather than intensity — sitting down for two minutes to claim the bonus is the equivalent of a coffee break. The bonus is not tied to spending; you can claim it whether you played anything the previous day or not.
A worked example — one week
- Monday: 5 000 GC + 0.4 SC (streak day 1)
- Tuesday: 5 200 GC + 0.42 SC
- Wednesday: 5 400 GC + 0.44 SC
- Thursday: 5 600 GC + 0.46 SC
- Friday: 5 800 GC + 0.48 SC
- Saturday: 6 000 GC + 0.5 SC
- Sunday: 6 200 GC + 0.52 SC — plus a weekly cashback if you incurred any SC net loss
Weekly total: 39 200 GC + 3.22 SC without spending anything. That is enough Sweeps Coins to trigger a cash-out banking rails redemption every eight days if you play the free coins conservatively. If you also mail in a postcard, you add another 5 SC per week to the tally.
Common misconceptions
The two most common misconceptions we see in the help centre live chat are (1) "Gold Coins can be redeemed for cash" and (2) "Sweeps Coins can be purchased directly". Neither is true. Gold Coins are entertainment-only; they cannot leave the sandbox. Sweeps Coins are promotional-only; they arrive as free add-ons to a Gold Coin purchase, or through the mail-in and daily-bonus routes. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either misinformed or trying to trick you into a scam. Tao Fortune's Priya Doucette editorial bio has published a whole reader letter on this topic, and the mechanics are also documented on the sweepstakes 101 guide.
Wallet hygiene tips
A few small habits keep the two-currency wallet feeling tidy. First: use the wallet's built-in "hide small balances" toggle so that a stray 0.03 SC does not clutter your dashboard. Second: set up a redemption reminder at 25 SC — the help centre live chat team can enable it in ten seconds. Third: if you buy the same Gold Coin package repeatedly, save it as a favourite; the checkout skips two taps. Fourth: enable receipt PDFs on the cash-out banking rails — they arrive within 60 seconds of every transaction and are worth their weight in tax-season sanity. Fifth: if you ever want to double-check a spin's RTP, the info panel on each slot in the sweepstakes slot library shows the certified figure alongside the pay-table hash.