What is a raffle, I was asked the other day as if the word had a special meaning for pubs. Well, it doesn't. It is a lottery, and that is a form of gaming covered by a separate piece of legislation called the Lotteries and Amusements Act 1976.
Most draws and sweepstakes follow roughly the existing lottery rules, but it has to be said that some of those that I have seen in my time in the trade do not comply exactly with the law!
There are three main types of lottery: the small entertainment lottery, the private lottery and the society lottery. Each has special rules and you cannot mix the best bits of each together to create you own scheme.
For example, a small lottery which takes place during entertainment can have no money prizes and the total value of the prizes from the lottery fund must not exceed £250 (although prizes may be donated). This is no good for a weekly draw or sweepstake where you are selling chances over the bar.
The second type must be confined to members of one club or society not connected with gaming. This is fine among members of the pub's football or darts team, but again it is no good for general sale to customers. People who participate must be members of the club in the first place, and just setting up a club to participate in the sweepstake is illegal as well.
The third is a lottery in which tickets can be sold to the public on behalf of a "society". This needs a form of registration with the local council. Again, this is too time-consuming and cumbersome for many pub-style lotteries.
But if you wanted to set up a scheme, the result of which depended on the number of medals won at this year's Olympics, you would have to ensure that it was within one of the legal "compartments", or was not a lottery at all. A skill competition is exempt from the lottery laws, but it is very difficult to organise one that does not turn into some form of sweepstake at the end.
This is such a complicated subject that I do not have the space to deal with it here. I shall come back to it again.