We generalize a classical result by Passman on primeness of unital strongly group graded rings to the class of nearly epsilon-strongly group graded rings which are not necessarily unital. Using this result, we obtain (i) a characterization of prime s-unital strongly group graded rings, and, in particular, of infinite matrix rings and of group rings over s-unital rings, thereby generalizing a well-known result by Connell; (ii) characterizations of prime s-unital partial skew group rings and of prime unital partial crossed products; (iii) a generalization of the well-known characterizations of prime Leavitt path algebras, by Larki and by Abrams-Bell-Rangaswamy. © 2024 The Author(s)