How do online raffles work?

Online raffles have increased in popularity over the last few years, and people are finding themselves drawn to competitions offering a variety of incredible prizes to be won. But, how do online raffles actually work? Are they different to the traditional raffle usually found at fundraising events such as schools? Let’s take a look.

A raffle is a form of competition that involves participants receiving numbered tickets to win a prize or prizes. Each ticket gives an equal chance to win the particular prize, and at a pre-determined time, the winner will be drawn at random. Traditionally, a ticket is picked from a container that holds one of each number sold, with the winning ticket drawn blindly by the host. Whichever ticket is chosen – e.g. ticket number 23 – the entrant holding that ticket wins the prize.

An online raffle is essentially the same, just with digital tickets rather than physical. At Raffolux, once you’ve signed up (for free), you can purchase Raffolux tickets, or enter via post for free. After buying your raffle tickets, you can then use these as entries to enter whichever raffle prize takes your fancy. We then either draw the winning ticket using random.org, an independent provider of true-random software, or use our in-house ball machine to pick a random winner live on stream.

What’s the difference between a raffle and a lottery?

The fundamental difference between the two is that a raffle will always have a winner whereas a lottery may not. When drawing a winner, a raffle only uses numbered tickets that correspond to the tickets purchased. A lottery can bring up a combination of numbers that have not been chosen by anyone, thus resulting in no winner.

Lotteries are commonly endorsed to be run by nations or states only and there are a number of government regulations that must be followed. Lotteries also allow participants to choose their own numbers, therefore as well as the chance of having no winner, there can also be multiple.

How do I win an online raffle?

Your odds of winning will depend on how many entries you have used, and of course holding more entries means you have a higher chance of winning. However, as the winners are chosen completely at random, anything can happen.

At Raffolux, our live draws are chosen by a ball machine and instant draws by random.org - an independent, third-party entity that uses atmospheric noise to ensure entropy rather than a mathematical formula (which do not deliver truly random results), therefore keeping the results as random as possible.

The draw date for each raffle will be clearly stated in the raffle description, and the raffle draw will take place shortly after the raffle ends or all the entries sell out. Busy during the draw? Don’t worry, we always email or call the winner so you won’t miss out. Just make sure your contact details are up-to-date! You can also check our winners page.

You can view your Raffolux tickets at any time in the ‘My Wallet’ section of your account.

Play today!

Now you know how it works, why not try your chance to win a luxury prize at Raffolux? From luxury holidays to cars, cash and more, we’ve got something for everyone.