How to run a raffle.
Written for the person who volunteered at a meeting and is now responsible for the whole thing. Eight steps, in the order you'll actually need them.
Pick the kind of raffle you're running, check what your state requires, line up prizes people actually want, price tickets so the odds feel fair, choose one way for people to enter and stick to it, sell for two to three weeks, then draw the winners in front of everyone and send the results the same day. Most of the work is in the first three steps. The draw itself takes about five minutes.
Pick the kind of raffle
This decision drives everything after it — how long setup takes, how many volunteers you need, and how long the drawing runs. There are four common formats.
Straight raffle
Everyone who enters goes into one pool and you draw winners from it. Entrants don't pick which prize they're after. It's the fastest to set up and the easiest to explain, and the drawing takes minutes. Best for school events, workplace parties, sports clubs — anywhere you don't want a table covered in ticket buckets.
Basket raffle (tricky tray, Chinese auction)
Each prize gets its own container, and entrants spread tickets across the prizes they actually want — all ten on the one basket they love, or one each across ten. People enjoy the strategy, and prize donors like seeing interest in their item. It takes longer to set up and longer to draw. Best for galas, craft fairs, and church bazaars.
50/50 raffle
No prizes to source at all: the pot is split between the winner and your cause. Popular at sports games and dinners because you can start selling with zero lead time. Worth knowing that 50/50 draws are the format most likely to need a permit, because the prize is cash.
Walk-up or always-on
Entries come in continuously rather than in one sales push — a QR code at the door, a tablet on a table, a code printed on receipts — and you draw whenever you're ready. Best for restaurants, open houses, gyms and shops, where there's no single moment when everyone is in the room.
If you're not sure, run a straight raffle. It's the format people understand without being told, and it's the one least likely to go sideways on the night.
Check the rules where you are
Do this before you print a single ticket, because it can change the whole plan. In the United States raffle law is set state by state, and the differences are not small.
- Many states allow paid raffles only for registered nonprofits — which can rule out a business running one for customers.
- Some require a permit or license, sometimes weeks in advance.
- Some cap total prize value, or dictate how much of the proceeds must go to your cause.
- Some restrict selling tickets online or across state lines.
- Cash prizes, including 50/50 draws, are usually the most tightly regulated.
Your state's gaming commission or attorney general's office is the place to look, and most publish a plain-language summary for charities. If meaningful money is involved, have a lawyer read your plan. No software makes an unpermitted raffle legal — and that includes ours.
There's one common workaround worth knowing: a free entry path. Sweepstakes rules in many places hinge on whether someone must pay to enter, so some organizers offer a no-purchase way in alongside paid tickets. Whether that's the right structure for your event is a question for someone qualified to answer it, not for a guide on a software website.
Line up the prizes
Prizes decide ticket sales more than anything else you control. A raffle with one prize people genuinely want beats a raffle with twelve forgettable ones.
- One headline prize pulls people in. Something worth talking about — a weekend away, a big-ticket electronic, a season pass.
- A handful of mid-range prizes keeps hope alive. If there's only one winner, most people decide they won't be it.
- Local beats generic. Dinner at the restaurant everyone likes often outsells a larger gift card, because it feels specific to your community.
- Ask businesses early. Most local businesses have a donation budget and a person who handles it. A short note explaining the cause, the audience size and how you'll credit them works better than a form letter.
Write down each prize's approximate value as you collect it. You'll want that number for your permit paperwork, for thanking donors, and because some states require it.
Price the tickets
Work backwards. Estimate how many people will realistically enter — not how many are invited — then set a price that gets you where you need to be at that number.
Most community raffles land between $1 and $10 a ticket. Bundles lift the average sale: $5 each or five for $20 is the classic, and most people take the bundle.
The thing to watch is how the odds feel. A $2 ticket for a $500 prize reads as a good bet. A $20 ticket for a $50 basket reads as a donation with extra steps — which is fine if that's what you're asking for, but say so.
A quick sanity check: expected entrants × average tickets each × price. If that number isn't close to your goal, the fix is usually a better headline prize or a wider audience — not a higher ticket price.
Decide how people enter
Pick one primary way in and make it obvious. Every extra option is another thing to explain at the door and another list to reconcile afterward.
- Paper tickets. No technology to fail, and everybody already knows how. The cost is on the back end: a shoebox of stubs someone has to read out, illegible handwriting, and no way to contact the winner if they've gone home.
- A QR code people scan. One poster or table card, and entrants put in their own details — which means their contact information is correct, because they typed it.
- An emailed link. Best when you already have the list: members, staff, parents. People tap once and they're in.
- A tablet at a table. Good for a busy entrance where a volunteer can point at it, and it keeps the queue moving.
Whatever you choose, collect a way to reach the winner. The most common raffle mess is a winning stub with a name and no phone number.
If you're weighing tools for this part, we wrote an honest comparison of raffle platforms versus fundraising platforms — they solve different problems, and the difference matters more than the feature lists.
Sell it
Two to three weeks is the sweet spot. Shorter and word doesn't get around; longer and the early momentum dies before the draw.
- Show the prizes, not the cause. People give because they support you, but they act because they want the thing. Photograph the prizes and lead with them.
- Name the draw date and time everywhere. A deadline is what converts "I should" into "I will."
- Let your volunteers share it. Twenty people posting to their own circles beats one organization posting to its page.
- Push hard in the last 48 hours. A large share of tickets in most raffles sells at the very end. Plan a final reminder and don't feel rude about it.
Run the draw
This is the part people remember, and the part where doubt creeps in if you're careless. Three habits prevent nearly every argument.
- Freeze the list before you draw. Close entries at a stated time and keep a copy of exactly who was in the pool. Nearly every dispute is really a disagreement about who was entered.
- Use a method nobody in the room controls. A hand in a bowl the holder can see into invites questions, however unfair that is to the person holding it. Anything visibly out of human hands is better.
- Do it where people can watch. On a stage, on a screen, on a livestream. Watching it happen answers the fairness question before anyone thinks to ask it.
Decide in advance what happens if a winner isn't there — do you re-draw on the spot, or hold the prize and call them? Say the policy out loud before the first name comes out, not after.
And keep a record of what happened: when the draw ran, who entered, who won. Your treasurer or board will thank you, and some states require it.
Finish clean
- Tell everyone the same day — winners and the people who didn't win. Silence after a raffle reads as disorganization, and it's the thing people remember next year.
- Hand out prizes promptly and get a note of who collected what.
- Thank the donors publicly by name. It costs nothing and it's most of why they'll say yes again.
- Write down what you raised and what it cost. Next year's organizer — possibly you — will want the real numbers, not a memory of them.
- Keep your records. Entry list, draw record, prize values, permit. File them somewhere findable.
Five mistakes worth avoiding
- Skipping the permit question. The one item on this page that can undo the whole event after the fact.
- Collecting names without contact details. A winning stub you can't act on is worse than no winner at all.
- Selling for two months. Long raffles don't raise more; they just lose momentum in the middle.
- Letting one volunteer hold everything. If the list lives on one person's phone and they're home with the flu on draw day, you have a real problem.
- Drawing in private and announcing later. Even done honestly, it invites the one question you never want asked.
Questions people ask
What's the difference between a raffle and a lottery?
In everyday use a raffle sells a limited number of tickets for specific prizes, usually for a cause, while a lottery is a state-run game of chance. Legally the line is drawn differently in different places, and some states treat certain raffles as a regulated lottery. That's exactly why step 2 comes before the fun parts.
How many tickets should I print?
If you're selling paper, print roughly twice what you expect to sell — running out mid-event costs you more than leftover stock. If people enter digitally the question disappears, which is one of the quieter reasons organizers move off paper.
Can someone enter more than once?
Usually yes — more entries mean better odds, and that's most of the appeal. Decide up front whether one person can win twice, and say so when you announce the rules. Most organizers draw a winner per prize and remove that person from later draws.
Do I need special software?
No. Plenty of good raffles run on paper tickets and a cardboard box. Software earns its place when the list gets big enough that reading stubs takes real time, when you want to reach everyone afterward, or when you'd rather not be the person holding the bowl. Under about thirty people, paper is genuinely fine.
What if the winner never claims the prize?
Set a claim window in your rules — thirty days is common — and state what happens after it: re-draw, or the prize goes back to your cause. Publishing that rule in advance is the whole trick.
Want the draw part handled?
That's what we make. People enter with a tap or a scan, the list stays in one place, and the drawing plays out on the big screen so the room sees it happen. Setup takes about twenty minutes.
Free for your first raffle, up to 30 participants, with every feature included.