The free entry route is the part of UK competition compliance that gets treated as a formality — a paragraph in the terms, a postal address nobody expects anybody to use.
That attitude is exactly what makes it a risk. If your free route is not genuine, your free draw is not a free draw, and what you are running may be an unlicenced lottery.
This is background, not legal advice. If you take money from the public for prizes, get proper advice.
Why it exists
Broadly, a paid arrangement allocating prizes purely by chance is a lottery, and commercial lotteries need a licence most operators do not have.
There are two established ways out. Add genuine skill, making it a prize competition. Or offer a genuine free entry route on equal terms, making it a free draw.
Plenty of sites do both. If you are relying on the free route, it has to be real.
What "genuine" means in practice
The principle is equal treatment. A free entrant should not be materially worse off than a paying one. That generally means:
- The same chance of winning. Free entries go into the same pool, with the same odds.
- The same prizes. Not a lesser tier.
- A realistic method. Usually a postcard with the required details to a UK address. It must be clearly explained and actually workable.
- The same closing date, with a sensible allowance for post.
- Findable. Published in your terms and reachable from the competition page. Not hidden three clicks deep.
The test worth applying: could a reasonable person, reading your site, work out how to enter free without contacting you? If not, it is not a route — it is a paragraph.
Where sites get it wrong
Making it deliberately awkward. Absurd requirements, a PO box that bounces, rules that make entry near-impossible. The whole point is that it is a real alternative.
Capping free entries but not paid ones. If a buyer can hold a hundred tickets and a free entrant is limited to one, "equal terms" is doing a lot of work.
Excluding free entrants from instant wins. If your paid tickets can win instantly and free ones cannot, they are not equivalent.
Not processing them. Postcards arrive. Somebody has to open them and enter the details before the close. Decide who, before you launch.
Running one without pain
The volume is almost always small — most people would rather pay than find a stamp. The cost is process, not scale:
- One address for all campaigns, checked on a schedule.
- A fixed set of details you require, so entries are either valid or clearly not.
- A simple log of what arrived and when it went in. If anybody ever asks, you have an answer.
- A calendar reminder to process the final batch before close.
Say it plainly
Some operators hide the free route because they think mentioning it costs sales. In practice it does the opposite — a clearly stated free entry route signals that you know the rules and run things properly.
On a market where trust is the main purchase barrier, that is worth more than the handful of postcards it invites.
