Independent UK guide · we sell no tickets
Prize competitions, worked out.
Cars for £2, cash for 99p, a house for a tenner. UK prize competitions are everywhere, and they are perfectly legal when they are run properly. FnF Competitions explains the rules behind them, the maths of your odds and the warning signs of a bad site, in plain English and without a sales pitch. Bangawin
- s.14Gambling Act 2005, the lottery test competitions are built to avoid
- 1st/2ndclass stamp: all a fair free postal entry should cost you
- £0income tax on most prizes won by individuals in the UK
Quick legal check
Competition, or illegal lottery?
Under section 14 of the Gambling Act 2005, an arrangement is a lottery when people pay, prizes are given out and winners are picked wholly by chance. Commercial competition sites must break that chain with a real skill element or a genuine free entry route. Answer three questions about any draw you are looking at. Rivo casino
General information for Great Britain, not legal advice. Read the full explanation.
Six checks before you pay a penny
There is no licence number to look up for a prize competition, so you have to do a little homework yourself. These six checks take about ten minutes and filter out most of the risk. Our full guide has twelve. Bettcat
- 01
A company you can look up
A limited company name and number in the footer or terms. Check it is active on the free Companies House register.
- 02
Maximum entries on show
Without it you cannot work out your odds. A site hiding the number is hiding the most important figure.
- 03
A free route you can actually use
Linked from the competition, costs a stamp, goes into the same draw. Not a paid text or a separate “free” draw.
- 04
A plan for unsold tickets
Does it draw anyway, extend the date or switch to cash? This clause matters most for very large prizes.
- 05
A draw you can watch
Live, random and recorded, with the winning ticket number published. “Winner will be contacted” is not enough.
- 06
Card payments only
A card gives you chargeback rights. Bank transfer, gift cards or crypto-only checkouts are a red flag.
WORKED EXAMPLE
illustrative figures, not a real draw
- Prize: car
- £30,000
- Maximum tickets
- 25,000
- Ticket price
- £2.49
- Takings if sold out
- £62,250
- Your chance (1 ticket)
- 1 in 25,000
- Expected value
- £1.20
- Back per £1 spent
- 48p
** THANKS FOR DOING THE MATHS **
Ticket maths
The sum the progress bar doesn’t show
Your chance of winning is your tickets divided by the maximum entries. Your expected value is the prize multiplied by that chance. Put the two side by side with the ticket price and you know exactly what you are paying for the thrill.
Returns of 50-70p in the pound are common, in the same way the National Lottery pays back less than it takes. That is not a scandal; it is how a prize draw pays for itself. The point is to compare draws with each other and to see the price of the entertainment clearly. Trixino
Five kinds of prize, five different catches
They all show a photo, a price and a progress bar, but the odds and the small print differ a lot.
Dream cars
Check the spec, history and the cash alternative. The cash figure tells you what the car is worth to the operator.
1k-20kCash
The easiest prize to value. Check how and when it is paid.
500-5kTech
Smaller draws, better odds. Check the exact model and UK warranty.
variesInstant wins
Fast and exciting. Check how many prizes are left, and cash or credit?
100k+Houses
Read the minimum-sales clause. Many end in a cash prize instead.
Figures are typical ticket ranges seen on UK sites, given for illustration only.
Green flags
- Company name and number you can verify
- Maximum entries and per-person cap on every draw
- Free postal entry linked from each competition
- Live, recorded random draw with ticket numbers
- Spending limits and cool-off tools in your account
- Age checks before a prize is paid
Red flags
- “Licensed by the Gambling Commission” for a competition
- No free entry route, or one into a separate draw
- Payment by bank transfer, gift card or crypto only
- A “winner” asked to pay a fee to claim a prize
- Countdown pressure and “last 10 tickets” every day
- Cloned social pages with an extra dot or underscore
The guide library
Ten guides, each answering one practical question. Reading times are approximate.
The rules
Money & odds
The question everyone asks
“Will I pay tax on it?”
Usually not. Prizes won by individuals from UK competitions, raffles and draws are not taxed as income, and winnings are not a chargeable gain. Tax can appear later: interest on a cash prize, prizes linked to your job, or large gifts to family. A car prize also brings insurance, road tax and running costs, so weigh it against any cash alternative. BetRepublic
Quick answers
Are online prize competitions legal in the UK?
Yes, when they are set up correctly. A paid prize draw that relies wholly on chance is a lottery under section 14 of the Gambling Act 2005, which commercial firms cannot run. Competition sites avoid that by including a genuine skill element, a free entry route (usually by post), or both.
Is a prize competition the same as gambling?
Not in law. Section 339 of the Gambling Act 2005 says taking part in a prize competition or a genuine free draw is not gambling for the purposes of the Act, so the Gambling Commission does not license competition sites. They still have to follow consumer, advertising and data protection law.
How do I work out my odds of winning?
Divide the number of tickets you hold by the maximum number of entries. Ten tickets in a draw capped at 5,000 entries is a 10 in 5,000 (1 in 500) chance if it sells out. If it is drawn without selling out, your chance is better because fewer tickets are in the draw.
What is the free postal entry route?
It is a way to enter without buying a ticket, usually by sending your details and the answer to the skill question on a postcard or letter to the address in the terms. Free entries should go into the same draw with the same chance as paid ones.
Do I pay tax on a competition prize?
Generally no. In the UK, prizes won by individuals from competitions, raffles and draws are not taxed as income, and winnings are not a chargeable gain. Interest earned on a cash prize afterwards is taxable in the usual way, and prizes connected to your job can be taxable.
Keep it a bit of fun
Competitions are not gambling in law, but they can feel like it. Decide a monthly budget before you start, never chase losses and never borrow to enter. If it has stopped being fun, the National Gambling Helpline (0808 8020 133) is free and confidential, 24 hours a day.