Most compers will be fully aware of Pick My Postcode (formerly The Free Postcode Lottery). At launch the site was offering daily visitors the chance to win £10 if they matched the winning postcode. Over time the site has mushroomed in to a major UK internet destination and now offers over £700 a day in giveaways. Which isn’t bad considering we thought it’d never catch on… oops!
From Selfies To Emojis
The success of Pick My Postcode by others and unsurprisingly there’s now a multitude of different daily lotteries you can enter. To differ from using postcodes others use number players, telephone numbers and your date of the birth. There’s even a Selfie Lottery which is based on uploading your picture and two which use emojis. Whilst updating Loquax recently we thought that it’d be kind of cool to list all the free lotteries we could find and then keep an eye on them. Pretty much like we did for the Win A House competitions back in the day. The idea behind our lotto watch is to see which sites are growing, how much is on offer to win and where you should be entering. When compiling the list we were surprised to find that there were so many sites inspired by Pick My Postcode. We were also surprised to see that not every site rolls over unclaimed prizes.
Claiming Prizes
The issue of claiming prizes cropped up on Twitter this week when a comper questioned one of the listed sites about a competition – not their daily giveaway – that they were running. The comper raised the point that posting a winner’s name on the site and expecting them to claim the prize was a breach of the CAP code. If that was the case then all the daily raffle/lotteries would be in breach of the code. However, we’re pretty confident that they’re not. According to CAP, the promoter’s “terms and conditions should be clear on how winners will be contacted”. Well all the sites say you must revisit on the day to see if you’ve won and to claim your prize. The code also suggests “If there are time limits on claiming prizes these should be made clear in the terms and conditions and confirmation of entry communications to avoid unnecessary disappointment”. Again all the sites say claims must be made before the next draw.
Alerting Winners
The only grey area would be this part: “promoters must take adequate steps to alert winners to the fact they have won”. Is posting a winner’s name on the website an adequate step? It would be nice if the winner was emailed but that defeats the purpose of the lottery/raffle sites – they want repeat visits so as to generate ad revenue and boost their prize funds. And as mentioned above, these site’s terms and conditions clearly state how their winners will be contacted and how the prizes are claimed. However, this does raise another important comping point! Make sure you read the terms and conditions before entering a competition, prize draw, lottery/raffle etc. If you’re not happy with the small print then don’t enter, although if there’s an obvious big issue then you can always raise it with ASA for confirmation.
Anyway, we digress – keep up to date with your daily chances to win cash prizes by visiting Loquax’s Free Lotto Watch. Do let us know which sites you like in the comments below – we’d love to hear from you.