Pay to enter prize draw sites, often referred to as raffle sites, hit the headlines just before Christmas when BBC News Yorkshire ran an article about Level Up Giveaways. According to the article, Dafydd Bayliss from Caerphilly revealed that after entering a prize draw on the site that he was the lucky winner of either a BMW M3 or £18,000 cash. However the win turned sour when, after three months, Dafydd hadn’t received a penny of the prize. The BBC contacted other winners from the site and discovered that they too weren’t getting prizes or even contact from Level Up Giveaways. Amongst those still waiting for prizes are Phill Harkins from Manchester who won a 20g gold bar, Scott Boyle who won £1200 and Mark McCorry who won £600. Level Up Giveaways launched in March 2019. It offered prize draws for a variety of items, including sports cars, luxury watches, and gold. In February 2024 they ran a draw for “£100,000 towards a house of your choice” but that actually resulted in entrants being refunded according to a FB live on 31/3. Interestingly in the same video Hall explains that they were spending £20K to £30K a month on advertising – which still wasn’t enough for exposure – and that they’s made the decision to “stay in their lane” and step back from doing the massive prize draws. In response to the investigation by The BBC, Anton Hall, the director of Level Up Giveaways, explained that “he was just someone who tried and did do good whose business has failed unfortunately”. Hall went in to further detail about the situation on social media.
Level Up Giveaways Response
Anton Hall has posted a number of times on the Level Up Giveaways Facebook page. Prior to The BBC report he posted a video on 6th December, the first post since October, explaining that he’d had to take some time out from the business as he was mentally and physically drained due to issues with the business and personal life. In the video he also explains that he’s not going anywhere and is aiming to fix the issues that have arisen. A post was then made in response to The BBC article where Hall explains why the website is down (can’t afford the running costs) and that he’s not running away from the problems but isn’t a good place mentally to deal with them just yet. A further post was added to Facebook on Boxing Day where Hall states that “when the truth comes out I hope the papers and all the people commenting and in my DMs send an apology”. He goes on “I have given out millions and after 5 years all I have to show for it is debt and a newspaper article calling me a scammer”. The post concludes with Hall saying that another video will be uploaded soon “explaining all”. Reading between the lines it does seem that Level Up overstretched themselves as a competition site. A one man band site offering large prizes perhaps in an attempt to get to the next level. Unfortunately – and as can happen in any business – cash in didn’t match cash out and Hall found himself in financial difficulties and possibly allowed the business to run away from him. Rather than address the problems as they started he ran more competitions to fund prizes he hadn’t awarded. The problem there is that once trust erodes you lose ticket buyers and end up exasperating the problem. Obviously our interpretation of the situation means little to those who have spent money on the site and/or not received their prizes as recent Trustpilot reviews demonstrate.
Rev Comps Steps In
In response to the article by The BBC, Rev Comps, a well established brand in the pay to enter prize draw sector decided to get involved and searched for Dafydd Bayliss in order to fulfill the missing prize. They said that they would pay out the £18,000 as a “goodwill gesture to show this industry isn’t completely full of scams and empty promises”. The money has already been transferred to Dafydd’s account and there’s a photo on Rev Comps Facebook page to prove the payment. Obviously this is good publicity for Rev Comps who will be paying out £1million in a draw at the end of 2024 and it’s great news for Dafydd too. Not so much for the other winners waiting for prizes from Level Up Giveaways. Rev Comps recognised that bad publicity taints the pay to enter prize draw sector and that can have a knock on effect to those platforms, like themselves, who have built their businesses up over several years. It’s a lovely gesture and kudos for Rev Comps for taking a stand. However, the most intriguing aspect of Rev Comps involvement is that Robbie Savage, a director of the company, is quoted as saying that “his firm would work with others in the new year on spearheading some sort of regulation” for the prize industry”. Savage explains things further on Facebook. He explains that setting up and running a competition site is easy thanks to platform providers. But building trust, an audience and not spending sufficiently on advertising means that “many sites struggle to actually get started”. This is something we’ve covered across Loquax and why it’s also easy to spot rogue sites such as the site we documented earlier on in the year.
“Some Sort Of Regulation For The Prize Industry”
Whilst we applaud Rev Comps for taking a stand and wanting to spearhead regulation for pay to enter prize draw sites, what exactly does “some sort of regulation for the prize draw industry” actually mean? Prize draws and competitions are not regulated by The UK Gambling Commission and as far as we’re aware they’re still a long way off getting involved in their research of the sector. We understand a white paper is being produced to look at the rise of these sites but who knows if/when any regulation will come in. If it did we think it’d have a huge effect as the sites would potentially fall under the “gambling” umbrella and that may result in licensing, limitations on advertising, stopping urgency with respect to buying tickets, limits on ticket prices and/or changing prices, limits on prizes, restrictions on imagery and a whole host of other things. The bigger sites may survive such regulation but a lot of smaller ones would close. Until UKGC get involved pay to enter sites will remain unregulated. So what can Rev Comps actually do and implement for the benefit of the sector? The most obvious would be to create a trade association of sites that all have the same values and desires for the industry – transparency, fairness, guaranteed prizes, responsible play etc. Players would know that a site they’re visiting is signed up to such an association and may feel happier to play. However that wouldn’t stop rogue sites from operating or prevent businesses falling into trouble. Getting a trade association together isn’t an overnight fix either so in our view serious – repercussionary- regulation for this sector can only come from UKGC. Anything else will just be larger brands trying to stand clear of potential bad apples and banana skins. It most certainly wouldn’t stop issues like fudging ticket sales arising.
Are Raffle Competitions A Scam?
Mention raffle sites or pay to enter competition sites to seasoned compers and the reaction is usually pretty clear. They don’t like them and prefer to avoid them, even if the brand involved is established and even if they have a free prize draw to enter. Mind you some raffle sites aren’t fond of compers as we’ve seen this year! The gambling aspect of these sites is a major factor. Whilst they aren’t governed by UKGC (yet) they pretty much do everything to encourage you to spend money and actually use tactics that UKGC wouldn’t allow. But are they a scam? Obviously we’d like to think that platforms such as Elite Competitions, McKinney, Bounty, Rev Comps etc are legitimate in their activities. They are after all million pound businesses. However – as with all competitions, pay to enter or free prize draws – we all need faith that everything is above board. And in any sector there are good sites, there are bad sites and there are businesses that end up closing down. The problem for pay to enter sites is that if you’re taking money from the paying public then you need to be honest and transparent. One whiff of not playing with straight dice, non-payment of prizes, not delivering prizes, not showing pictures of winners etc and your business will collapse and be irretrievable. At face value Level Up Giveaways looks like they bit off more than they could chew and have paid a heavy price. For those thinking that running a pay to enter prize draw site is easy and a quick route to big profits, this situation might actually act as a good lesson. Far too many siteowners think it’s a get rich quick scheme and have little to no idea what running one of these sites actually entails.
What Would We Like To See?
The comping world is not the exclusive domain of purchase necessary or creative comping and it’s important to embrace change. Pay to enter sites have changed comping, although some siteowners do think that they’ve invented it!! Years ago people would happily fire off hundreds of postcards a month to enter competitions with zero transparency on what happened to their entries. Today though we’re all a little more cautious because a site like Rev Comps offers the chance to win an Audi for £1.90 or Elite is selling tickets to win a house for 29p! That seems odd to an extent. In our view there’s a place for good, high quality, fair, transparent and responsible pay to enter prize draw sites. Those sites would have caps on ticket price and sensible limits on tickets that can be purchased per player. Players would be able to set payment limits per month and have responsible play tools like time outs and self exclusion. Ideally self-exclusion would stretch to other platforms. Platforms would also need to be active in monitoring spending and red flag excesses. We’d like to see ticket prices fixed for the duration of a promotion, so no early birds or late owl discounts. The Apprentice style last minute cut prices everything must go to drag in extra revenue discounts would also be gone. Payments shouldn’t be taken using credit cards or credit cards via Paypal. All references to gambling and images that attract younger audiences should be gone. We’d also like to see incentives to post glowing 5* reviews on Trustpilot stopped. Reviews should be fair and honest – where 1 or 5 stars – and not written to grab a few free tickets. Some of these wants could be implemented under self-regulation but some would potentially change the businesses involved. Unfortunately we think it’s going to take a lot more bad articles to kick The UKGC into taking action with competition sites. In the meantime let’s hope Rev Comps follow through with their idea for a better and fairer pay to enter competitions industry.