How to run a fair giveaway or prize draw

Updated 17 October 2026

Most giveaway complaints are not about the prize. They are about the draw: entries that went missing, a winner nobody can find, rules that changed after the fact. All of that is avoided with three habits: write the rules down first, draw in a way that can be checked, and keep a record. This guide is general information, not legal advice. Rules depend on where you and your entrants are, so check with a lawyer for anything large.

Write the rules before you announce it

Publish short terms next to the giveaway, or link to them. The UK’s advertising code for promotions lists most of what belongs in them, and it is a good checklist anywhere:

• Who can enter: minimum age, countries or regions, and whether staff and their families are excluded.
• How to enter, how many entries each person may have, and any cost.
• The closing date and time, with a time zone. “Ends Friday” starts arguments; “closes 18:00 UK time on Friday 13 November” doesn’t.
• The prizes: how many, what exactly, and any limits.
• How the winner is chosen and when the draw takes place.
• How and when winners are told, how long they have to reply, and what happens if they don’t.
• How the result will be announced.

The legal basics

In most places, a draw decided by chance becomes a lottery once people have to pay to enter, and lotteries are tightly controlled. Keep entry free and you avoid most problems.

In the US

• No purchase necessary. The Federal Trade Commission says it is illegal to ask people to pay or buy something to enter a sweepstakes, or to improve their chances of winning.
• Entry posts must be labelled. If people enter by posting about your brand, the FTC treats the chance to win as a reward that has to be disclosed. A hashtag such as #YourBrand_Sweepstakes or #YourBrand_Contest works; its examples say a vague tag, “sweeps”, or #sweepstakes on its own is not clear enough.
• States add their own rules. New York, for example, requires games of chance with prizes worth more than $5,000 in total to be registered with its Department of State before they start. Check the states you accept entries from.

In the UK

• Free draws need no licence in Great Britain, says the Gambling Commission. If there is also a paid way to enter, the free route must be no more expensive and no less convenient, and the draw must not treat the two kinds of entry differently.
• A “competition” must really test skill. If the winner is picked on skill, knowledge or judgement, it isn’t a draw, but the Commission notes that multiple-choice questions rarely pass that test.
• Draw by chance, verifiably. The advertising code requires winners to be picked by a computer process that gives verifiably random results, or by an independent person, or under one’s supervision.
• Deliver and report. Prizes should normally be awarded within 30 days, and promoters must be able to show a real winner exists, usually by giving the surname and county of major winners, who must be told in advance and allowed to object.

On Facebook

Meta’s Page rules require your terms to include a release of Facebook by each entrant and a statement that Facebook doesn’t sponsor, endorse or run the promotion. “Share this to your timeline to enter”, “share on a friend’s timeline for extra entries” and “tag your friends to enter” are not allowed: promotions are run from your Page or an app, not through people’s timelines and friends. Meta also says plainly that it won’t help run your promotion and that keeping it lawful is your responsibility.

Collect and clean the entries

Once entries close, export them into one list before you draw, and keep a copy as it was at the closing time. Then clean it in the open:

1. Remove entries that arrived after the closing time.
2. Remove anyone your rules exclude, such as staff or people outside the region.
3. Remove duplicates if the rules allow one entry per person. Random pickers count every line as a separate entry, so a name that appears twice has twice the chance.
4. Number the remaining entries from 1 in a spreadsheet, and save that numbered list.

Draw the winners

A numbered list works for any size of giveaway and leaves a clear record of who had which number.

1. Start a screen recording that shows the numbered list and the picker together.
2. Open the random number generator, set the range from 1 to the number of entries, turn on No repeats, and ask for the number of winners plus two or three reserves.
3. Press Generate once. The first numbers are the winners in order, the rest are the reserves, in that order.
4. Look up each number in the list while still recording, then stop.

For a short list of names, the random name picker does the same without the numbering. On a livestream, the wheel spinner is more fun to watch; it holds up to 100 entries, and its winner is chosen before the wheel starts to turn, so the animation can’t be timed or nudged. Whichever you use, draw once. Redrawing until you like the result is exactly what people suspect giveaway hosts of.

All of TickPickr’s pickers draw with your browser’s cryptographically secure random number generator, and nothing is sent to a server. Read how random a random number generator is for what that means and how simple pickers can be biased.

After the draw

• Contact winners through the channel your rules named. Never ask them to pay a fee or share bank details to claim; that is how giveaway scams work, and real winners know it.
• If a winner doesn’t reply by the deadline, move to the first reserve and note the date.
• Announce the result as your rules promised, with the winner’s permission, and deliver the prize promptly.
• Keep the entry list, the numbered list and the recording for a while, in case anyone asks. Then delete personal data you no longer need.

Want people to see exactly when entries close? Share a countdown to the closing time with the giveaway post.