Publishers Clearing House is owned by ARB Interactive, Inc., a Miami-based mobile gaming company that bought the brand’s assets out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July 2025 for $7.1 million in cash plus roughly $378,000 tied to assumed contracts. The purchase ended more than seven decades of private ownership connected to the founding Mertz family and the charitable trusts they established.
What ARB Interactive Bought
ARB Interactive operates online gaming platforms and launched “PCH Digital” after the sale, running sweepstakes under the familiar brand. What transferred was essentially a name, a digital platform, and a customer list, not a going concern. PCH’s accounts receivable of about $5.4 million stayed behind and were not part of the sale.
The bankruptcy court attached specific conditions to the deal. Sensitive personal information was excluded from the purchased assets. Any customer data that did transfer must be held in a separate entity and cannot be commingled with ARB’s other data, and ARB must give customers notice and opt-in or opt-out choices on data sharing. ARB also has to comply with the prior Federal Trade Commission settlement that PCH entered into before filing.
Who Owned Publishers Clearing House Before
Harold Mertz, his wife LuEsther, and their daughter Joyce Mertz-Gilmore started the company in 1953 out of the basement of their home in Port Washington, Long Island. The family held complete control in the early years, and Harold introduced the sweepstakes model that defined the brand for generations.
Over time, the family moved out of day-to-day operations and shifted their equity into trusts. For most of the company’s modern history, ownership was split between Mertz family successors and charitable trusts established by the founders, with the charitable interests holding roughly 55 percent. More than 40 percent of the company’s profits went to causes including the arts, environmental protection, civil rights, medical research, and public television. By the time of the bankruptcy filing, no family member held an executive position or worked at the company.
Because PCH was privately held, it never issued public shares and was not required to file annual reports or shareholder lists with the Securities and Exchange Commission.1Investor.gov. Form 10-K The trust-heavy structure also made a hostile takeover effectively impossible, because the trusts controlled the equity and had to manage it for their nonprofit beneficiaries.
Why the Company Changed Hands
Revenue fell off a cliff. PCH took in $854 million in 2017 and $182 million by 2023, as consumer attention moved to digital platforms and magazine subscriptions became marginal. By the time of the bankruptcy filing, the company reported liabilities between $50 million and $100 million against assets of just $1 million to $10 million. Outstanding promised prize obligations alone were estimated at $26 million, with $1.9 million due in 2025.
Regulatory trouble layered on top of the financial decline. The FTC reached an $18.5 million settlement after finding that PCH had misled older and lower-income consumers into believing purchases were necessary to enter sweepstakes or improved their chances of winning. The complaint also cited emails designed to look like official documents such as tax forms, and “risk-free” claims that ignored return shipping costs borne by consumers seeking refunds. The FTC later distributed more than $18 million in refund checks to affected buyers.2Federal Trade Commission. FTC Sends More Than $18 Million to Consumers Harmed by Publishers Clearing House
On April 9, 2025, Publishers Clearing House filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York. The company described the filing as a strategic step toward becoming a digital advertising-supported entertainment business. Among the largest unsecured creditors listed were 10 prize winners owed ongoing payments the company could no longer afford.
What the New Ownership Means for Past Prize Winners
ARB Interactive is not responsible for prizes awarded before July 15, 2025. The company has stated that honoring those prizes was never part of its purchase agreement. Winners of lifetime or “forever” prizes, including people receiving $260,000 a year under “$5,000 a week for life” awards, saw those payments stop in 2025.
Those winners are unsecured creditors in the bankruptcy case, which puts them behind secured creditors in line for recovery. With total outstanding promised prizes estimated at $26 million and company assets of $1 million to $10 million, full payment is not realistic, and unsecured creditors in Chapter 11 typically recover a small fraction of what they are owed. The only pre-bankruptcy prize obligations ARB agreed to honor are two unawarded “SuperPrizes” that were still being promoted at the time of the sale.
Everything carried forward under the PCH name now runs through ARB Interactive’s PCH Digital platform. The brand is the same; the owner, the business model, and the obligations attached to past wins are not.