Licensing rules for pubs hosting raffles or charity fundraisers

Here are some top tips on how to organise and run your raffles within the rules.

Raffles to raise money for charity

You can offer a charity raffle to your customers, but this must be held at a specific event such as an Easter fair for example.

The raffle can’t be the main reason for holding the event and so it must take place alongside a commercial or non-commercial one-off event. There are specific rules that must be followed including:

You must provide physical tickets to those taking part
Tickets can only be sold at the location of the event and during the event
You can’t sell tickets online (which includes social media) or before the event takes place
You can draw the raffle during or after the event. You should make it clear to all those taking part when you’ll be announcing the draw
There cannot be a rollover
A maximum of £500 can be deducted from ticket sales for prizes, but additional prizes can be donated
A maximum of £100 can be deducted to cover the costs of any expenses, for example, tickets
You can only run an incidental lottery/raffle to raise money for charity

Workplace Raffle

These can also be used to raise funds for charity or just for fun provided you operate within the following rules :

There cannot be a rollover
Raffles must only be run on a single set of work premises
All participants must work on those premises.
You must provide physical tickets to each person participating
You cannot sell tickets online or via email
People must pay the same price for each ticket
You can only sell physical tickets to colleagues when you are all at your place of work
The rights on the ticket must be non- transferable - you cannot pass your ticket to someone else
The draw must take place on the business’ physical premises

You can’t make a profit from a work lottery or raffle. All proceeds must either be used for reasonable expenses and prizes or donated to a charity.

Customer Raffle (not suitable for charity fund raising)

You cannot make a profit from a customer lottery, and you also cannot use them for charity fundraising.

All proceeds from tickets sales have to be spent on prizes (less deductions for any reasonable expenses incurred, such as the cost of the tickets).

The following rules must be complied with when running a customer raffle.

The maximum value per prize cannot exceed £50. The prize can be cash, goods, services or a mixture
Advertisements can only be on the premises. There cannot be any promotional material available online, via text message or outside of the premises itself. You can’t advertise the raffles across several venues for example
Tickets can only be sold to a customer when they are on the premises
Every ticket must give the name and address of the organiser and the price of the ticket. It must also state that the tickets are only available to customers of the premises and that the ticket is non- transferrable
Only one draw per 7 days is permitted to take place on the same business premises
You can only run a customer lottery from a single set of physical business premises and the draw must take place on these premises. It can’t be done online
The rollover of prizes is not permitted
Children under 16 cannot take part

There are other types of lotteries, but most would either need registration with their local authority as a small society lottery or a licence from the Gambling Commission. Further guidance can be found on the Gambling Commission website.