Skill questions
A question is not a magic loophole.
Adding "What colour is grass?" to a checkout does not automatically turn a chance based commercial draw into a genuine prize competition.
The law looks at what the skill requirement actually does.
What is a prize competition?
The Gambling Commission describes a prize competition as one where the outcome is determined by participants' skill, judgement or knowledge. That is different from a free draw, where the exemption is based around the availability of a genuine free entry route. The two structures should not be treated as interchangeable.
The test needs to matter
For a genuine prize competition, the skill, knowledge or judgement requirement needs to be capable of either discouraging people from entering because it is too difficult, or preventing a proportion of entrants from winning.
If everybody can answer it without thinking, the question may not be doing the job you think it is.
Multiple choice
The Gambling Commission specifically says that multiple choice questions, or questions allowing another attempt following a wrong answer, will rarely satisfy the required criteria. So Beaver will never tell you that adding any question makes your competition legally compliant.
Software can enforce the question. It cannot strengthen the question.
What Beaver does
Validate on the server before payment.
Live Beaver's checkout can serve and validate a configured skill question server side before the payment stage. The browser cannot simply claim the answer passed without the server validating it.
A wrong answer stops the order before payment.
The browser does not mark its own homework.
- Question
- Customer answer
- Server validation
- Correct: on to payment
Rotating questions
The product includes a rotating question bank control, but that behaviour is currently switch only. So we do not claim automatic rotating questions, a different question on every order or adaptive difficulty.
One working question is more real than ten settings that do nothing.
Question design: where software stops
Beaver does not make universal claims such as "this question is legally sufficient" or "this answer rate makes your model lawful", because the legal assessment is wider than the software check. Operators who rely on the prize competition exemption should understand the legal test and take advice appropriate to their specific model.
Beaver can tell you whether the customer answered your question correctly. It cannot tell you whether a court would consider the question difficult enough.
Advertising language
CAP guidance distinguishes competitions, where prizes are allocated on skill, from chance based prize draws, and says promotions with no genuine skill or knowledge requirement should not be described in ways that imply skill determines the outcome. The terminology in your marketing needs to match the promotion you actually run.
Call the promotion what it actually is.
Hybrid models
The DCMS Code notes that an operator can have a business using both a free draw route and a skill based element. In that situation, relevant operators should sign up in relation to the free draw aspect. Pure skill based competitions sit outside the scope of that Code.
The market often talks about "question plus postal route plus chance" as if it were one simple legal category. It is not necessarily that simple.
Questions
Asked and answered
Does adding a skill question make my draw legal?
Not automatically. The Gambling Commission says the skill, judgement or knowledge test must have a meaningful effect, and ordinary multiple choice questions rarely meet the required threshold.
Can Beaver tell me whether my question is legally sufficient?
No. Beaver can validate the configured answer before payment. It cannot provide a legal determination about whether the question satisfies the statutory prize competition test.
Does Beaver validate questions in the browser?
No. The skill question is validated server side before payment.
Can Beaver rotate questions automatically?
A rotating question bank is present as a control but is not currently wired as live behaviour.
Primary sources
Where this page gets its facts
- Gambling Commission: Free draws and prize competitions(opens in a new tab)The skill test and the note on multiple choice questions.
- CAP Code, section 8: Promotional marketing(opens in a new tab)How competitions and prize draws are described.
- DCMS: Voluntary Code of Good Practice for Prize Draw Operators(opens in a new tab)Scope, including hybrid models.
Checked 19 September 2026. Guidance changes; always read the current version at source.
Enforce the question you choose
But choose it properly first.
Need an interpretation of the legal test? Speak to an appropriate legal adviser. Want to see how Beaver enforces the configured question? Talk to us.