News · United Kingdom
Raffles in Your Feed — What the Gambling Commission Found About Illegal Lotteries on TikTok
A live video, a numbered grid, £2 a square, a car or a designer bag at the end of it. Somebody presses a button, a name appears, the comments fill with congratulations. It looks like a giveaway. Legally, quite often, it is an unlicensed lottery — and if it goes wrong, you have no more recourse than if you had handed the cash to a stranger in the street.
The Gambling Commission published research in mid-August 2026 examining how British consumers encounter and judge these draws. The most uncomfortable finding is about what people check before paying.
People check whether it looks real, not whether it is legal
The research, carried out by Yonder Consulting across 4,233 UK residents aged 16 and over, found that participants were generally more concerned with whether a raffle appeared genuine and offered a realistic chance of winning than with whether it was legally authorised.
Three features made a draw feel lower-risk to consumers, none of which has anything to do with whether it is licensed:
- low ticket prices — a few pounds reads as trivial, so the legality question never arises
- informal presentation — a person on camera in their living room does not pattern-match to “gambling company”
- familiar payment methods — paying by a method you use for everyday purchases borrows that method’s sense of safety
TikTok was the platform of particular concern, with Facebook and Instagram also in scope. 10% of 18-to-24-year-olds said they had entered an individual-led lottery or raffle on TikTok, and that age group was more likely than older cohorts to have both encountered and participated in one.
The enforcement numbers
The Commission’s intelligence team reported an increase in suspected illegal lotteries and raffles on TikTok during 2025 compared with the previous year. The published figures:
| Measure | Figure |
|---|---|
| Illegal lotteries removed from social platforms (past 12 months) | 252 |
| Suspected illegal lotteries reported in 2025 | 438 |
| Reports of society lotteries presenting as free draws or prize competitions | 544 |
The last row is a different problem from the first two. It describes licensed-adjacent operators dressing a lottery up as something that does not require a licence — which is a compliance question for the promoter, not a scam aimed at the participant. Both categories are growing, and both blur the line the public is being asked to police.
For scale on the legitimate side: society lotteries in Britain passed £1bn in gross gambling yield, and the Commission has signalled tighter scrutiny of the sector as it grows.
Where the legal line actually sits
This is worth spelling out, because the distinction is genuinely confusing and the platforms do nothing to explain it.
A lottery requires a licence when three things are true: you pay to enter, prizes are allocated wholly by chance, and there is no free alternative route in. Only licensed operators and registered societies may run one, and small society lotteries must be registered with a local authority.
A prize competition does not require a licence if winning depends on a genuine element of skill, knowledge or judgement sufficient to deter a significant proportion of entrants — a real question, not “what colour is the sky”.
A free draw does not require a licence if there is a genuinely free entry route that is publicised as clearly as the paid one and gives free entrants the same chance of winning.
Most individual-run social media raffles satisfy none of these. Pay per square, winner picked by a random number generator, no skill question, no free route: that is an unlicensed lottery.
What you actually lose by entering one
The protections you give up are concrete, and they are the whole reason the licensing regime exists.
- No dispute route. Licensed operators must belong to an alternative dispute resolution scheme. An individual running a raffle from a phone belongs to nothing.
- No prize guarantee. Licensed lotteries must hold prize funds appropriately and publish results. There is no obligation on an unlicensed promoter to hold the prize, award it, or draw at all.
- No age checks. Licensed gambling is 18+ and verified. A live raffle checks nothing, which is the finding that should concern anyone with teenagers.
- No payment protection. Bank transfer and person-to-person payment methods are the ones with the fewest reversal rights. That is exactly what these draws typically use.
- No published odds. You do not know how many squares were actually sold, and there is no auditable record.
Practical takeaways
Five checks, each of which takes seconds.
- Look for a free entry route. If the post never mentions one and there is no skill question, treat it as an unlicensed lottery and walk away.
- Ask who is promoting it. A licensed society lottery names its promoting society and its local authority registration or licence details. “DM me to pay” is not that.
- Check the register before paying. The UKGC public register is free and searchable, and the Commission publishes guidance on lotteries, free draws and prize competitions.
- Treat the payment method as information. A request to pay by bank transfer or a friends-and-family transfer removes your chargeback rights. Legitimate licensed lotteries do not need you to give those up.
- Report what you see. The Commission acts on public reports — 438 of them in 2025 led to draws being stopped. Reporting a suspected illegal lottery through the Commission’s website takes a couple of minutes.
The broader point for anyone who gambles online: the informality is the risk, not a reassurance. A regulated operator’s registration form, ID check and deposit limit are friction you can see. A raffle in your feed has none of that friction, and none of the protection that produced it.
Sources
- Next.io — UKGC: consumers often overlook legality of social media lotteries, August 2026
- Lottery Daily — Gambling Commission looks into illegal lotteries on TikTok, 14 August 2026
- Lottery Daily — Gambling Commission warns of tougher rules as society lotteries hit £1bn GGR
- UK Gambling Commission — lotteries and the law
- Yonder Consulting research for the Gambling Commission, 4,233 UK residents aged 16+
Responsible gambling. A £2 square feels like nothing, which is precisely what makes repeat entries easy to lose track of. Count what you spend across a month rather than per draw. If gambling is affecting your finances, work or relationships, call GamCare on 0808 8020 133 (free, 24/7) or visit BeGambleAware.org. 18+. UK players can self-exclude across all licensed operators via GAMSTOP.
This article may contain affiliate links. 18+. Please gamble responsibly. BeGambleAware.org