A lottery is a kind of gambling which has three important elements:
- you have to pay to enter the game
- there is always at least one prize
- prizes are awarded purely on chance
A typical small scale lottery is a raffle, bonus ball, or sweepstake.
Small Society Lottery
The Gambling Act 2005 defines this by looking at two distinct areas:
- Society status
- the society in question must be 'non-commercial'
- Size of lottery
- the total value of tickets to be put on sale per single lottery must be £20,000 or less, or
- the total, combined value of tickets to be put on sale for all their lotteries in a calendar year must not exceed £250,000.
- If the operator plans to exceed either of these values, they will be classed as a large lottery operator. This means they must be licensed with the Gambling Commission instead.
Those running a small society lottery must be registered with a licensing authority. This must cover the whole time the lottery is promoted.
Please use the Application Form that is available within the Related Publications section at the bottom of this page.
The licensing authority must be in the area where their main office is located. If a licensing authority believes that a society’s main office is in another area, it should inform the society and the other authority as soon as possible.
Incidental non-commercial lotteries
These do not require to be registered with the Council. These are raffles which are held at non-commercial events, such as school fetes, etc. All the sales and the draw must take place during the main event. It can last more than a single day. Prizes can not total more than £500.
Please see the Related Publications below and the Gambling Commission website for more details on Lotteries.