So, I recently bought a raffle ticket and a copy was emailed to me afterwards. I was skimming the document they sent me with all the relevant dates of the drawings and prizes, and this sentence caught my eye under the section on eligibility rules:

“Anyone 18 years of age or older and a U.S. resident physically residing in the United States or Washington DC may enter.”

This was the very first time I’d ever seen wording like that, especially wording that seems to suggest that the United States and Washington DC are separate entities. Usually it says something about residents of either the 50 U.S. states or Washington DC. I have to admit that I never really bought the whole spiel about the U.S. corporation that has been talked about on here, but the way these rules were worded this time definitely caught me off guard. Also, this raffle was only just launched this year (2021) as part of an annual fundraising effort that they do. Perhaps there is nothing to this, but I’ve definitely never seen anything like this in the terms and conditions of any sweepstakes/contests in the past.