Nearly half a million people have signed up to get free money from Andrew Yang

Andrew Yang
(Image credit: Robyn Beck / Getty Images)

Entrepreneur Andrew Yang offered to give away free money at last week's Democratic debate, and his email list grew many sizes that day.

Yang during his opening statement at the third Democratic debate announced he would give $1,000 a month for a full year to 10 randomly-selected families who entered a raffle on his website. An email address is required to enter the contest, which is meant to showcase his 2020 proposal to give every American adult $1,000 a month in what he calls a Freedom Dividend.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

This announcement comes as Yang himself is swearing that his contest is actually legal, something experts immediately called into question. Although Yang has already been giving $1,000 a month away to some families, he was doing that with his own money, whereas this contest uses campaign funds; an expert with the Campaign Legal Center told Politico the stunt is of "dubious legality, at best."

Yang swears it's fine, though, in a Sunday interview describing it as "perfectly legal" and saying the campaign has "an army of lawyers who signed off on it." Assuming he gets away with it, after this success, don't be surprised to see the businessman double down on these game show-esque raffles for the next Democratic debate in October.

Explore More
Brendan Morrow

Brendan worked as a culture writer at The Week from 2018 to 2023, covering the entertainment industry, including film reviews, television recaps, awards season, the box office, major movie franchises and Hollywood gossip. He has written about film and television for outlets including Bloody Disgusting, Showbiz Cheat Sheet, Heavy and The Celebrity Cafe.