Charity lottery UK guide

The Gambling Act 2005 treats an arrangement as a lottery when three things are present: payment to take part, a prize, and allocation of that prize by chance. Charities and other non-commercial societies may run lotteries if they stay inside the society-lottery rules. The legal name is a society lottery.

People search for charity raffle, charity sweepstake, prize draw, tombola, 100 club and postcode lottery as if they were different products. Paid versions of those formats are still lotteries when payment, prize and chance line up. A genuine free-entry prize draw is the main exception.

Hundreds of UK charities use lotteries. That is legal, common and often well run. It is not a criticism of them that World Aid Network has chosen a different boundary. We ask for a direct gift instead.

A typical weekly charity lottery costs about £1 or £2 per line. Some schemes bill monthly. Postcode lotteries take a subscription against your home postcode and pay everyone in a drawn postcode who entered. Event raffles sell numbered tickets and draw them on the night.

Every ticket in a society lottery must cost the same, and the price must be paid before the draw. Tickets have to show the society’s name, the price, who is promoting the lottery, and how the draw date is fixed. Licensed lotteries must also point players to the Gambling Commission.

A charity may hire a licensed external lottery manager to run the scheme. That does not move legal responsibility off the society. Both the society and the manager need the right licence if the lottery is large enough to need the Commission.

The Act lists eight categories of permitted lottery. Society lotteries (small and large) and local authority lotteries are the ones most people mean by “charity lottery”. The others are exempt formats such as incidental non-commercial lotteries at an event, private lotteries, work lotteries, residents’ lotteries and customer lotteries.

The National Lottery is a different legal regime. It is not a society lottery. The minimum age for National Lottery play is 18. Society lottery tickets must not be sold to, or by, anyone under 16. Many charity lottery operators set 18+ as a house rule on top of the law.

Licensed society lottery tickets must not be sold in a street, except from a kiosk or shop, or door to door. “Street” includes malls and passages. This page is general information, not a licence application and not legal advice. Read the Gambling Commission before you sell tickets.

A small society lottery may not take more than £20,000 in proceeds from a single lottery, or more than £250,000 from all its lotteries in a calendar year. No prize may be worth more than £25,000, even if the prize was donated. Registration is with the licensing authority where the society’s principal office sits. The first registration fee is typically £40, then £20 a year.

If a lottery would break those limits, it is a large society lottery. The society must hold a Commission operating licence before it crosses the line. After one large lottery, later lotteries in that year and the following three years are also treated as large. Large lotteries may take up to £5 million in one draw and £50 million in a calendar year. The top prize is £25,000 or 10% of proceeds, whichever is greater — so a £5 million lottery could offer a £500,000 top prize.

At least 20% of the gross proceeds of each lottery must go to the society’s purposes. Ticket sales by website or phone on a large lottery need a remote operating licence. Small society lotteries registered with a council do not need a Commission remote licence to sell online. Returns after each small society draw go to the local authority.

The 20% floor is a Gambling Commission condition, not a typical result. Operators must also publish the proportion returned to the cause. Look for that figure on the lottery page or in the annual report before you compare schemes. Postcode lotteries often quote around a third of each subscription.

A card donation is not “100% to the cause”. World Aid Network does not claim a 100% donation policy. Payment processing still takes a cut. Even so, most of a direct gift can fund surgery, treatment or emergency kits, and a UK taxpayer can add Gift Aid on a genuine donation once our registration is granted.

If your aim is the jackpot, a lottery is the product you want — and you should read the odds the operator is required to show you. If your aim is the cause, a donation sends more of the same spend to the work.

HMRC’s Gift Aid guidance (Chapter 3) lists raffle and lottery tickets, including 100 clubs, alongside school fees and jumble-sale purchases: they are payments for a right or goods, not donations. A charity must not claim Gift Aid on those payments.

World Aid Network’s Gift Aid claims start once Charity Commission registration is granted (application 5290505). You can donate by card now and tick the Gift Aid box to record a declaration. That route is for a gift, not for a ticket we do not sell.

If you want the tax-efficient version of giving, use the donate page, not a raffle. Higher-rate taxpayers can reclaim the extra difference through self-assessment once Gift Aid is live — still only on a real donation. See the Gift Aid page for the 25p-in-the-pound table.

The wording on lottery adverts can feel like giving. You are still paying for a chance. That is why the Gambling Commission regulates the product and why BeGambleAware messages appear on licensed schemes.

For the same £2 a week, a direct monthly gift to World Aid Network can be Gift Aided later and can be allocated to cataract surgery, cancer treatment, or emergency food, water and shelter. A lottery ticket cannot.

A raffle drawn at the same non-commercial event where the tickets were sold may be an incidental non-commercial lottery. Those exempt lotteries do not need a Commission licence or local-authority registration, but they have their own limits on when and how tickets are sold. Confirm the current prize and expense rules with the Gambling Commission before you print tickets.

An ongoing raffle sold in advance, online, or through multiple channels is not an incidental event lottery. It needs small-society registration or a large-society licence, depending on proceeds.

A tombola, where every ticket wins something, is still gambling if people pay to draw. Instant-win charity scratch cards are instant lotteries and need the right licence if they are sold to the public.

Workplace Grand National sweepstakes sit in a grey area. A closed work lottery among colleagues can be an exempt work lottery if it stays inside the Act’s private/work rules. The moment you sell tickets to the public, take a cut as the organiser, or advertise widely, you may have left the exempt category. The Gambling Commission’s guidance on organising small lotteries is the place to check.

Free prize draws must offer a real free route that is as publicised as the paid route. A premium-rate text with no postal alternative is not a free draw. If the only way in is to pay, it is a lottery.

World Aid Network does not run sweepstakes, free draws or paid draws. If your office wants to support us, collect donations and give them on the donate page, or email [email protected] to mark a group gift.

The People’s Postcode Lottery is the well-known UK example. Other postcode and street-prize products exist. They are licensed gambling products, not donations. Operators publish a return to good causes — often around a third of each pound — which is still below a typical direct gift, and Gift Aid still does not apply.

We do not rank postcode lotteries and we do not tell you not to play someone else’s licensed scheme. We do say: if your reason for paying is the cause, a card gift to World Aid Network (or to any charity you already trust) sends more of that spend to the work.

National Lottery proceeds go to National Lottery good-cause distributors under their own rules. A society lottery’s 20% minimum stays with that society’s purposes. The products look similar at the till. The licences, ages and money trails are different.

The Health Lottery is another well-known society-lottery brand supporting health-related good causes. It is not World Aid Network and we are not a beneficiary. Name-brand searches should not be answered with a WAN ticket — we do not sell one.

“Best” depends on whether you want a prize or a gift. Licensed operators must show information on proceeds, prizes and the chance of winning before you play. Use that, not a ranked list on this site.

We will not name World Aid Network as the best charity lottery because we do not run one. We will not place ourselves above Macmillan, hospices, or postcode-lottery partners. If you already play a scheme you trust, that is your choice. If you want to fund cataract surgery, cancer treatment, or emergency food and water through us, use the donate page.

Work through the Gambling Commission’s pages on society lotteries and on organising small lotteries before you print tickets. Check prize caps, the 20% minimum to the cause, under-16 rules, and whether an external lottery manager would need their own licence.

Do not claim Gift Aid on raffle income. Do not sell licensed lottery tickets in the street except from a kiosk, a shop, or door to door. Do not invent a “WAN raffle” — we are not running one, and using our name on tickets we have not authorised would be misleading.

If you wanted the raffle in order to support World Aid Network, skip the draw. Collect gifts and donate them here, or ask us to mark a community collection. That is simpler, Gift Aidable later, and does not require a gambling licence.

Many charities we respect run lotteries carefully, with age checks and GambleAware signposting. This is a boundary we have set for ourselves, not a ranking of their ethics.

We would rather say: you give, the money pays a hospital bill or a relief kit, we report what it funded. No jackpot, no draw, no chance element. That is the honest relationship we want with supporters.

Card donations are open now. Gift Aid claims start when registration is granted. If you were looking for a World Aid Network lottery, raffle or sweepstake, this is the page that tells you it does not exist — and where to give instead.

The Gambling Survey for Great Britain (2024) found 2.7% of adults aged 18+ scored 8 or more on the Problem Gambling Severity Index. That is a screen for people already experiencing adverse consequences, not a count of charity-lottery players. Public Health England’s 2021 point estimate of 409 gambling-related suicides a year in England was replaced in 2023 by an OHID range of 117 to 496 associated with problem gambling. Those figures are estimates, not a death register.

Charity framing can make it harder to notice a problem. A low price and a good-cause story lower the barrier to buying another line. Licensed operators must still provide information on how to gamble responsibly.

World Aid Network would rather lose lottery income than raise it from people who cannot afford the ticket. If you need help, use the helplines on this page. They are independent of us.

Other methods — payroll giving, gifts in wills, crypto, shares, in memory — are listed on ways to donate. None of them is a lottery.

If your workplace, mosque, church or friends were planning a raffle “for WAN”, collect the money and donate it here instead. Email [email protected] if you want the gift marked as a group or in someone’s memory.