What is a sweepstake?

The basic definition

A sweepstake is a prize competition in which each participant is randomly assigned one of the possible outcomes of an event. The participant whose assigned outcome actually occurs — or performs best — wins the prize pot, which is usually formed from the participants' entry fees.

The word "sweepstake" originally referred to a competition where the prize "swept" together all the entry fees from participants. The format is centuries old but became deeply embedded in British sporting culture through horse racing, and later football tournaments.

How a sweepstake works in practice

What makes a sweepstake different from gambling?

The key distinction is that a sweepstake is a private social activity, not a commercial gambling operation. The prize comes from the participants themselves, not from a bookmaker. There is no house edge, no profit taken by an operator, and no attempt to generate income from the activity beyond the prize pot.

Under UK law, private sweepstakes run for entertainment within a workplace, pub, or social group are generally considered exempt from the Gambling Act 2005 as long as they meet certain conditions — primarily that participation is genuinely voluntary and the prize is funded entirely from entry fees rather than guaranteed by the organiser.

See our full guide to sweepstake legality in the UK for more detail.

Common types of sweepstake

Why sweepstakes work so well in groups

The random assignment is the engine of a sweepstake's social value. Because nobody chose their entry, everyone started from the same position. The person who drew a long shot has as legitimate a claim to glory as the person who drew the favourite. There is no skill advantage, no prior knowledge required, and no way to game the system.

This creates genuine cross-group engagement. Someone who ordinarily has no interest in football suddenly has a stake in whether Morocco progress past the group stage. The sweepstake does the work that years of trying to convert someone into a football fan could not.

It also creates a shared competitive thread that runs for the duration of the event — giving colleagues, friends, or pub regulars something to discuss, argue about, and celebrate together over weeks.

Running a sweepstake without the admin

Traditional sweepstakes are run with paper slips and a hat, or a shared spreadsheet that needs updating after every match. Both work but both require ongoing organiser effort throughout the event.

playdrawr handles the draw and leaderboard automatically — the organiser sets it up once, runs the draw, and shares the link. From that point, the leaderboard updates itself as results come in. No spreadsheet maintenance, no fielding the same "who do I have?" question twelve times.