Small Society Lottery Registration: A Step-by-Step Guide

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 — registered charities, PTAs, sports clubs, 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 — 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 — 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 contact details, and the draw date. Every ticket must cost the same — bundle discounts aren't allowed. Tickets must not be sold to under-16s (many operators apply 18 — check your platform's policy).

Step 4: Selling online — the step that catches people out

Advance sales through a website or by text count as remote gambling. In practice societies either keep online sales within a licensed platform — DONATE's raffle service operates under our own Gambling Commission licence and handles ticketing, age checks, the draw and records — or appoint a licensed External Lottery Manager. Don't simply put a payment link on your website without one of these structures in place. 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, but online ticket sales are remote gambling — run them through a platform with a Gambling Commission licence (such as DONATE) or a licensed External Lottery Manager rather than selling directly from your own website.

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 winner notification — with proceeds reported clearly for your post-draw return. PTAs will find tailored advice in the school raffle guide.