Small Society Lottery Registration: A Step-by-Step Guide
How to register a small society lottery with your local authority: who qualifies, the £40 fee, the £20,000 and £250,000 limits, ticket rules and the post-draw return.
If your charity, club or community group wants to sell raffle tickets in advance, rather than only at an event, the usual legal route is a small society lottery, registered with your local authority under the Gambling Act 2005. It's a genuinely simple process. Here's the whole thing, start to finish. (General guidance, not legal advice; your local authority and the Gambling Commission are the authorities.)
Who qualifies
A "society" is any non-commercial organisation raising money for charitable, sporting, cultural or other non-profit purposes, such as registered charities, PTAs, sports clubs and community groups. The lottery must be run to support the society's purposes, never for private gain.
Step 1: Register with your local authority
Apply to the licensing team of the council where your society's principal office is based. You'll supply the society's details, purpose, and the name of the promoter (the person responsible for the lottery). The fee is £40 on first registration and £20 a year to stay registered. Registration covers every lottery you run while it remains in force, so you don't register each draw separately.
Step 2: Stay inside the small society limits
- £20,000 maximum ticket proceeds per single lottery
- £250,000 maximum proceeds across all your lotteries in a calendar year
- At least 20% of proceeds must go to the society's purposes
- No single prize worth more than £25,000
- Rollovers only into another lottery of the same society, within the prize limit
Expect to exceed these? You need a large society lottery operating licence from the Gambling Commission instead, which is a much bigger compliance undertaking.
Step 3: Get the tickets right
Each ticket (physical or digital) must show the society's name, the ticket price, the promoter's name and address, and the draw date. Every ticket must cost the same, so bundle discounts aren't allowed. Tickets must not be sold to under-16s.
Step 4: Selling online
Your council registration covers online and text sales too: a small society lottery does not need a Gambling Commission remote licence to sell tickets online. What you do need is a way to sell tickets that keeps proper records, shows the right details and stops at the limits. DONATE's raffle service runs it as your own small society lottery: you add your licence details once, they appear on every raffle page, and the tickets, the draw and the winner messages are handled for you. If a third party manages the lottery for you, that firm needs a Gambling Commission External Lottery Manager licence. Our online raffle rules guide explains the wider picture.
Step 5: File the return after the draw
Within three months of each draw, send your local authority a return showing proceeds, the amounts spent on prizes and expenses, and the amount applied to the society's purposes, signed by two authorised members. Keep your own records too.
Small society lottery FAQs
How much does small society lottery registration cost? ＋
£40 for the initial registration with your local authority, then £20 per year to remain registered. Registration covers all your society's lotteries while in force.
Do we need to register for a raffle at our summer fair? ＋
Not if tickets are sold only at the event and the draw happens there. That's an incidental lottery, which needs no registration (prize spend capped at £500, expenses at £100). Registration is needed once you sell tickets in advance.
Can we run our small society lottery online? ＋
Yes. A small society lottery registered with your council can sell tickets online or by text without a Gambling Commission remote licence. Use a platform that keeps proper records and shows your registration details, such as DONATE.
What happens if we raise more than £20,000 on one draw? ＋
You've exceeded the small society limit and need a Gambling Commission large society lottery licence. If a draw might go near the threshold, speak to the Commission before selling tickets.
Registered? Launch the raffle
Once your structure is in place, DONATE's online raffle platform takes care of the mechanics (payments, entries, the draw and telling the winners), with proceeds reported clearly for your post-draw return. PTAs will find tailored advice in the school raffle guide.