How to start a prize competition business in the UK.

1. Choose the model

In Great Britain, a paid entry promotion where prizes are allocated wholly by chance is a lottery, and lotteries cannot simply be run for private gain. Competition businesses usually operate under one of two exemptions in the Gambling Act 2005:

• A free draw: paid entry alongside a genuinely free entry route, with both treated equally in the draw.
• A prize competition: the outcome depends on skill, judgement or knowledge, with a test that genuinely works.

The Gambling Commission does not approve promotions or help design them. If you are unsure which model you are running, get legal advice before you launch.

More: UK prize draw compliance.

2. Get the free route or the skill test right

If you run a free draw, the free route must be genuinely usable: no more expensive or less convenient than paying, available at the normal rate (first or second class post counts), promoted as prominently as the paid route, and treated identically in the draw. Free entry routes.

If you run a prize competition, the skill test must either put people off entering or stop a proportion of entrants from winning. Simple multiple choice questions rarely do. Skill questions.

3. Decide how you will treat good practice

The DCMS Voluntary Code of Good Practice for Prize Draw Operators, published on 20 November 2025, sets expectations on player protection, transparency and accountability for relevant operators: age checks, monthly spending controls, account suspension, monitoring and intervention, credit card restrictions and marketing restrictions.

It is voluntary, not law. Building to it from day one is much easier than retrofitting it. The DCMS Code.

4. Brand, terms and data

Your brand and domain are yours. Your terms need to cover how entries work, closing dates, the free route or skill test, how winners are chosen, prize details and significant conditions.

You will be handling personal data, so UK data protection law applies. Most organisations that process personal data need to pay the ICO data protection fee; check whether it applies to you.

5. Set up the platform

You need a storefront, checkout, customer accounts, a way to run draws, a way to record fulfilment and the controls that protect players. On Beaver, self service signup and guided setup provision the storefront, legal pages, mail sender and an isolated runtime, and a readiness gate stops you going live with required setup missing. Start a competition business on Beaver.

6. Payments

Card acquirers will want to understand your model before they take you on, so be ready to explain it clearly. Keep your merchant relationship in your own name.

For clarity about Beaver: the sandbox payment journey works end to end, and production card processing is still awaiting real merchant validation.

7. Run draws you can prove

Customers increasingly expect to see how a winner was chosen. The most useful approach is to commit to the entry list before the draw, use randomness nobody can choose, and publish enough for anybody to check the result. How to verify a prize draw.

8. Fulfil prizes properly

Record what is owed, check age before releasing a prize, and keep dispatch and delivery evidence. For high value prizes, advertising guidance from CAP is clear that changing closing dates or terms, or substituting a lower value prize, causes problems.

9. Market within the rules

Prize promotions are covered by the CAP Code. Describe the promotion accurately: do not imply skill decides the outcome of a chance based draw. Respect marketing consent, and never market to people who have excluded themselves or are flagged for care.

10. Keep the controls running

Spending limits that stop the transaction, breaks and exclusions that hold, an audit trail of sensitive changes, and dated evidence of which controls were active. Player protection.

Better competition businesses are built, not bolted together.