How do I know if an online competition is legitimate?

Look for four things before anything else: a named limited company with a Companies House number and registered address, a free postal entry route in the terms, a fixed closing date and ticket cap with no extension clause, and card or wallet payment through a secure checkout. If any of those four is missing, do not enter. After that, look for a skill question, a results page with past winners, an explained draw method, full terms, and independent reviews.

Are Facebook competitions legit?

Some are, many are not. A competition run only through a Facebook page or group, with no website, no company name and payment by bank transfer or PayPal friends and family, has none of the protections a legitimate operator provides. Legitimate operators use social media to promote draws and broadcast results, but the entry, payment and terms live on a website that names the company.

What is the biggest red flag in a prize competition?

A draw date that moves. An operator who extends a competition because tickets did not sell out is telling you the published date was never real, and the same operator will usually be vague about the promoter, the free entry route and the draw method. Bank transfer as the only payment method is a close second because it removes your chargeback rights.

Is it legal for a competition to extend the draw date?

It can be lawful if the terms allow it, but it is a poor sign and it changes the deal you entered. In a guaranteed draw the winner is picked on the published date from the tickets sold. An extended draw dilutes your odds and, if repeated, suggests the operator cannot afford to award the prize unless it sells out.

Can I get my money back from a fake competition?

If you paid by credit or debit card, contact your card issuer and ask for a chargeback, and for credit card payments over £100 you may also have a Section 75 claim. Report the operator to Action Fraud and, if it was running a paid draw with no free entry route or skill question, to the Gambling Commission as an illegal lottery. Bank transfer payments are much harder to recover, which is why legitimate operators never insist on them.

Are UK competition sites regulated?

Skill-based prize competitions with a free entry route sit outside the Gambling Act 2005 and are not licensed by the Gambling Commission, although the Commission does act against paid draws that are really unlicensed lotteries. Competition advertising is covered by the Advertising Standards Authority's CAP Code, and consumer law on unfair terms and misleading practices applies to every operator.

Coast Competitions Guide · Tool

How to Tell if an Online Competition Is Legitimate in the UK

Thousands of people in the UK enter online competitions every day, and the overwhelming majority of operators are exactly what they appear to be. The few that are not follow a recognisable pattern. This guide sets out the twelve things a legitimate competition site publishes, in the order that matters, and gives you a checker that scores any operator in about two minutes.

Last updated 25 September 2026 · Written by Coast Competitions

Key Takeaways

Four must-haves: A named company with a Companies House number, a free postal entry route, a fixed closing date and cap, and card or wallet payment. Missing any one of these means walk away.
The transparency layer: A skill question, a results page with ticket numbers, an explained draw method, full terms, and reviews on a platform the operator cannot edit.
The tell: Draw dates that move, payment by bank transfer, no company name, and winners you cannot see are the pattern of a competition to avoid.
If it goes wrong: Chargeback through your card issuer, Action Fraud for the crime, the Gambling Commission for an illegal lottery, and the ASA for misleading adverts.

Free tool

Is this competition legit?

Open the competition site in another tab and answer each question honestly. Anything you cannot find in two minutes counts as a gap, so use “Can't tell” freely.

1
Must have
The site names the promoter: a registered company name, a Companies House number and a registered address.
2
Must have
There is a free postal entry route written into the terms and conditions.
3
Must have
The closing date and the ticket cap are published before you enter, with no clause allowing the draw to be extended if tickets do not sell out.
4
Must have
Payment is by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay through a secure checkout, never by bank transfer, cryptocurrency or gift card.
5
Should have
You have to answer a skill question before you can buy a ticket.
6
Should have
There is a results page listing past winners with ticket numbers and draw dates.
7
Should have
The draw method is explained, either a live streamed draw or a random number generator whose result you can check.
8
Should have
Full terms and conditions and a privacy policy are published, and entry is restricted to people aged 18 or over.
9
Should have
There are reviews on an independent platform such as Trustpilot or Google, with recent activity and replies from the operator.
10
Good sign
You can see real winners: photos or videos of handovers, first names and areas, rather than stock images.
11
Good sign
There are working contact details: an email address that replies, and ideally a phone number or physical address.
12
Good sign
There is a limit on tickets per person and a responsible play page.

Verdict

Answer the checks on the left and the verdict appears here.

0 of 12 answered

Check us against the same list

Coast Competitions Ltd is company 17087259, registered in Ogmore-by-Sea. Our terms carry the free postal route, our results page lists every draw, and our winners are real people from South Wales and beyond.

Why this is the right first question

Comping has become a mainstream British hobby. There are hundreds of active UK prize competition sites, from long-established operators giving away supercars to family businesses like ours running weekly cash draws. That growth has attracted a small number of people who set up a page, sell tickets for a prize that does not exist, and disappear. They rely on entrants checking the prize photo rather than the promoter. Spend two minutes on the promoter first and the prize photo takes care of itself.

The four checks that matter most

The first thing to find is the legal entity behind the competition. A legitimate operator names its limited company, publishes its Companies House number and gives a registered address, usually in the footer and again in the terms. You can confirm the company exists in seconds on the Companies House website. If the only identity on offer is a trading name and a social media handle, there is nobody to hold to the terms and nobody to pursue if the prize never arrives.

The second is the free postal entry route. Under the Gambling Act 2005 a paid draw must either involve genuine skill or offer a free way in, otherwise it is a lottery and needs a licence. Our guide on whether prize competitions are legal explains the law. For your purposes the point is simpler: an operator who has not bothered with the legal foundation of the product has not bothered with much else.

The third is a fixed closing date and ticket cap, published before you enter, with no clause allowing an extension if tickets do not sell out. This is what a guaranteed draw means. Extensions dilute your odds and, when they happen repeatedly, suggest the operator cannot award the prize unless the draw sells out. Coast Competitions has never extended a draw and never will.

The fourth is how you pay. Card, Apple Pay and Google Pay through a secure checkout give you chargeback rights and, on credit cards over £100, Section 75 protection. Bank transfer, cryptocurrency and gift cards give you nothing, which is exactly why fraudulent operators steer you towards them.

The signs of a well-run draw

Once the four foundations are in place, the next layer is transparency. A skill question before purchase shows the operator understands its legal position. A results page listing every past draw with the winning ticket number and date is easy for an honest operator to maintain and very hard for a fake one to sustain. The draw method should be explained, whether that is a live stream on social media or a random number generator whose output you can check afterwards. Our guide on how winners are chosen and verified covers what to look for in each.

Full terms and conditions and a privacy policy should be one click away, and entry should be restricted to adults. Finally, look for reviews on a platform the operator cannot edit. A steady flow of reviews over months, including a few critical ones with replies, is worth far more than a wall of testimonials on the operator's own site or a burst of five-star reviews in a single week.

Red flags in the wild

The patterns repeat. A competition that exists only on a Facebook page or in a WhatsApp group, with payment by bank transfer or PayPal friends and family, has none of the protections above. A prize far larger than the ticket cap could ever fund, such as a new Range Rover on 500 tickets at a pound each, is not generosity. Countdown timers that reset, “final extension” posts, and winners announced by first name only with a stock photo all point the same way. So does any request for a fee, a tax payment or a delivery charge before a prize is released. In the UK prize winnings are tax free and a legitimate operator never asks a winner for money.

What to do if you have been caught out

If you paid by card, contact your card issuer straight away and ask for a chargeback. For credit card payments over £100, mention Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act. Report the operator to Action Fraud, which is the UK's national reporting centre for fraud. If the operator was running a paid draw with no free entry route and no skill question, report it to the Gambling Commission as an unlicensed lottery. Misleading adverts can be reported to the Advertising Standards Authority. Keep screenshots of the competition page, the terms as they appeared when you entered and every message from the operator.

How Coast Competitions measures up

We built the checker to be run against us as much as anyone else. Coast Competitions Ltd is company number 17087259, registered at 33 Seaview Drive, Ogmore-by-Sea. The free postal entry route is in our terms and conditions, every draw has a fixed closing date and cap shown on the competition page, and payment is by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay. Every completed draw is listed on the results page, our winners are real people we have met, and our reviews are on Trustpilot where we cannot touch them. If you find a gap, tell us.

Summary

A legitimate UK online competition names its company, offers free entry, closes when it says it will and takes payment by card. Beyond that it shows you a skill question, a results history, a draw method, full terms and independent reviews. Run any operator through the checker above before you spend a penny, and if you want to see the whole list satisfied in one place, browse our live competitions.

Frequently Asked Questions

Look for four things before anything else: a named limited company with a Companies House number and registered address, a free postal entry route in the terms, a fixed closing date and ticket cap with no extension clause, and card or wallet payment through a secure checkout. If any of those four is missing, do not enter. After that, look for a skill question, a results page with past winners, an explained draw method, full terms, and independent reviews.
Some are, many are not. A competition run only through a Facebook page or group, with no website, no company name and payment by bank transfer or PayPal friends and family, has none of the protections a legitimate operator provides. Legitimate operators use social media to promote draws and broadcast results, but the entry, payment and terms live on a website that names the company.
A draw date that moves. An operator who extends a competition because tickets did not sell out is telling you the published date was never real, and the same operator will usually be vague about the promoter, the free entry route and the draw method. Bank transfer as the only payment method is a close second because it removes your chargeback rights.
It can be lawful if the terms allow it, but it is a poor sign and it changes the deal you entered. In a guaranteed draw the winner is picked on the published date from the tickets sold. An extended draw dilutes your odds and, if repeated, suggests the operator cannot afford to award the prize unless it sells out.
If you paid by credit or debit card, contact your card issuer and ask for a chargeback, and for credit card payments over £100 you may also have a Section 75 claim. Report the operator to Action Fraud and, if it was running a paid draw with no free entry route or skill question, to the Gambling Commission as an illegal lottery. Bank transfer payments are much harder to recover, which is why legitimate operators never insist on them.
Skill-based prize competitions with a free entry route sit outside the Gambling Act 2005 and are not licensed by the Gambling Commission, although the Commission does act against paid draws that are really unlicensed lotteries. Competition advertising is covered by the Advertising Standards Authority's CAP Code, and consumer law on unfair terms and misleading practices applies to every operator.