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Avoid Illegal Lotteries: Two Legal Tests for UK Prize Draws

Compliance first guidance on UK prize draw rules. Learn the two legal tests, running a valid free entry or skill test, required T&Cs and audit checks.

1 September 2026

Avoid Illegal Lotteries: Two Legal Tests for UK Prize Draws

Avoid Illegal Lotteries: Two Legal Tests for UK Prize Draws

Legal review of a UK prize draw

Prize draws are legal in Great Britain, but only when they clear one of two hurdles: a genuine test of skill or a properly designed free-entry route that’s just as convenient as paying. Miss both, and the promotion risks being classed as an illegal lottery under the Gambling Act 2005. Before you launch anything, check your terms and conditions and your free-entry mechanics against those two tests.

TL;DR:

  • A free-entry route must be no more expensive and equally convenient as the paid option, with documented proof of compliance from day one.
  • A skill-based competition needs genuinely difficult questions that require multi-step reasoning or logic, not simple fact recall, with records to prove its validity.
  • Terms and conditions must be clear, including the draw’s end date, entry instructions, prize details, and a working link, to meet advertising standards.
  • The draw process must be genuinely random and well-documented, using verifiable methods or supervised physical draws, with detailed records kept for accountability.
  • Charity prize draws require written approval from the charity, transparent organizer details, prompt winner contact, and proper record-keeping to avoid extra scrutiny.

Table of Contents

The Gambling Act 2005 splits promotions into three categories, and which one yours falls into determines whether you need a gambling licence. A prize draw (or “free draw”) allocates prizes purely by chance, with no meaningful skill involved. A prize competition requires entrants to demonstrate skill, knowledge, or judgement, and that skill element must be enough to genuinely affect who wins. A lottery charges for entry and awards prizes by chance, with no free alternative and no meaningful skill test, and this is where the law gets strict.

Under the Gambling Commission’s guidance, a paid promotion avoids being classed as a lottery only if it satisfies a genuine skill test that eliminates a substantial share of entrants, or offers a free-entry route that’s as convenient as paying. Get the classification wrong and you’re running an unlicensed lottery, which carries real regulatory teeth:

  • Criminal liability for the organiser under the Gambling Act 2005
  • Potential fines and, in serious cases, imprisonment
  • Regulatory intervention and forced closure of the promotion
  • Reputational damage that outlasts any single campaign

The Gambling Commission doesn’t pre-approve draws or competitions. It reviews them after the fact if a complaint arises, so the burden sits entirely with you to get the structure right before launch.

How do you make a free entry route valid under the Gambling Act?

The free route is what keeps most prize draws on the right side of the law, and the Gambling Commission is precise about what “free” actually means. It has to be no more expensive and no less convenient than the paid route. A postal entry that requires a first-class stamp against a £3 online entry generally passes. A postal entry that demands recorded or special delivery, or forces entrants to travel somewhere, generally fails.

Four things need to line up before you launch:

  1. Design genuine parity. The free route should take roughly the same time and effort as paying, not an inflated version of it.
  2. Advertise it prominently. The Gambling Commission’s guidance confirms the free route must be publicised at or before the point of purchase, not buried in a footnote after someone’s already paid.
  3. Write it into retainable T&Cs. Entrants need to be able to find and keep the free-entry instructions, not hunt for them mid-transaction.
  4. Treat all entries equally in the draw. A free entrant’s ticket must have the same odds as a paid entrant’s. Segregating them into a lesser pool undermines the whole mechanism.

Pro Tip: Keep a dated screenshot or archive of exactly where and how you displayed the free-entry route at launch. If a complaint ever lands, that record is your evidence that the parity requirement was met from day one, not added retroactively.

When does a skill test make a competition lawful?

This is the murkiest corner of prize draw rules UK organisers have to navigate. The Gambling Act 2005 never defines how many entrants a skill question must deter. There’s no official formula or percentage. Legal commentary on operating a prize competition in Great Britain is blunt about this uncertainty, leaving promoters to assess their own risk.

What’s clear is what doesn’t work. A question with an answer that’s obvious, or one line away on Google, won’t cut it. “What colour is the sky?” or “Which country is the Eiffel Tower in?” style questions have been widely criticised precisely because they filter out almost nobody. A defensible test needs genuine difficulty:

  • Multi-step reasoning rather than single-fact recall
  • Numerical or logic-based questions with a wrong-answer rate you can estimate
  • Tie-breaker mechanisms that add a second layer of skill, not just chance

Keep records explaining why you believe the test is sufficient. If a complaint arises, legal guidance on running competitions makes clear that a documented rationale carries far more weight than an after-the-fact justification.

Pro Tip: Trial your skill question on a handful of people before launch and log the pass rate. A real fail rate is worth more evidence than any argument about how “hard” the question sounds.

What must your terms and conditions say to satisfy the ASA?

Transparency is the baseline the Advertising Standards Authority expects, and it’s also where a surprising number of otherwise well-run draws come unstuck. The ASA’s CAP Code requires “significant conditions” to be available at or before the point of entry, not tucked away where entrants only find them after paying.

At minimum, your T&Cs need:

  • A clear closing date and time, including timezone if relevant
  • Exact instructions for how to enter, covering both paid and free routes
  • The number, nature and value of prizes on offer
  • Eligibility rules, including any age or geographic restrictions
  • A working, permanent link to the full terms, not a page that vanishes post-draw

Odds and prize claims deserve particular care. Overstating your chances of winning, or dressing up a modest prize as something grander, is a frequent cause of upheld complaints. The ASA has been explicit that a missing or broken T&Cs link is enough on its own to trigger action, so keep a dated record of where your terms were displayed and confirm the link works throughout the promotion, not just at launch.

How should the draw itself be run and evidenced?

A prize draw only holds up under scrutiny if the selection method is genuinely random and you can prove it afterwards. Two approaches are widely accepted:

  1. Verifiable random number generation, with a logged seed, timestamp and audit trail showing exactly how the winning entry was selected.
  2. A supervised physical draw, using a certified machine or an independent witness, with the process recorded and the outcome documented.

Whichever method you choose, keep a full paper trail: the complete entries list, payment receipts for paid entrants, the draw log itself, every attempt to contact the winner, and confirmation of prize delivery. This isn’t paperwork for its own sake. It’s what protects you if a losing entrant, a journalist, or the regulator asks how the result was reached.

Notify winners promptly, ideally within days rather than weeks, and publish a reasonable, fixed timeframe for prize delivery in your T&Cs from the outset. Promoters who delay contact or quietly extend delivery windows invite exactly the kind of complaint the ASA has upheld before over prizes not awarded as described.

What extra rules apply to charity prize draws?

Charity fundraisers face a stricter version of the same rules, and the Fundraising Regulator’s guidance sets out several additional obligations for anyone running a draw on a charity’s behalf:

  • Get written authorisation from the charity before you launch anything in its name.
  • Publish the organiser’s identity clearly, alongside full T&Cs, so entrants know exactly who they’re dealing with.
  • Attempt to contact winners within seven days of the draw and keep records proving you did.
  • Publish winners’ results, typically surname and county, unless the winner objects.

Keep every record from entry list to prize handover. Charity draws attract more scrutiny than commercial ones, precisely because donors trust that the money and the process are handled properly.

What are the most common compliance mistakes, and how do you avoid them?

Most enforcement problems trace back to a handful of repeated failures, and they are avoidable with good pre-launch and post-draw checks.

Before launch:

  • Correctly classify the promotion as skill-based, free draw, or paid entry with a valid free alternative.
  • Publish retainable, permanent T&Cs before entries begin.
  • Confirm the free route is genuinely equivalent to the paid route.
  • Set age verification and spend limits aligned with the Voluntary Code of Good Practice for Prize Draw Operators.

During the draw:

  • Use a verifiable random number generator or certified, supervised physical draw.
  • Use independent supervision when prize value or scale requires it.
  • Keep a complete audit log as the draw progresses.

After the draw:

  • Contact winners promptly, documenting every attempt.
  • Award prizes exactly as advertised; substituting cheaper alternatives due to low sales has led to unsupported complaints and damages trust.
  • Publish winner details if promised, respecting any publication objections.

The Voluntary Code aims to raise standards beyond the legal minimum, helping create trusted draws rather than complaint magnets.

A publisher’s view: checking the rules before you check the odds

Rafflegenius doesn’t offer legal advice, and nothing here replaces a solicitor for a genuinely uncertain case. What it does offer is a live view of the market: odds updated every 10 minutes, operator guides, and alerts that help you compare where your entry actually stands the best chance.

Before entering anything, read the operator’s T&Cs directly and look at their prize-fulfilment history, not just this week’s advertised odds. A promoter with vague terms or a patchy record of awarding prizes as described is a bigger red flag than long odds ever are. Our operator comparison guide is a reasonable place to start that check, and once you’re satisfied the rules stack up, our live odds tracker shows where your money currently goes furthest.

— matt

This article is general information, not a substitute for advice from a qualified lawyer. Consult a qualified legal professional about your own circumstances before acting on anything here.

Sources

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