Raffle prizes, is this ok or not?

Belenus

Young Paddy bought a donkey from a farmer for £100.
The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day.
The next day he drove up and said, 'Sorry son,
but I have some bad news. The donkey's died.'
Paddy replied, 'Well then just give me my money back.'
The farmer said, 'Can't do that. I've already spent it.'
Paddy said, 'OK, then, just bring me the dead donkey.'
The farmer asked, 'What are you going to do with him?'
Paddy said, 'I'm going to raffle him off.'
The farmer said, 'You can't raffle a dead donkey!'
Paddy said, 'Sure I can. Watch me. I just won't tell anybody
he's dead.'
A month later, the farmer met up with Paddy and asked,
' What happened with that dead donkey?'
Paddy said, 'I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at £2 each
and made a profit of £898'
The farmer said, 'Didn't anyone complain?'
Paddy said, 'Just the guy who won. So I gave him his £2 back.'

PHK

According to the gambling commission this would be classed as a lottery. And if you click through to:

https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/public-and-players/guide/page/types-of-lottery-you-can-run-without-a-licence#6-i-want-to-run-a-small-lottery-for-charity-or-to-raise-money-for-my-club-or-group

The rules are set out. It does heavily imply that prizes can't be changed. So if a prize was substituted with one of lower value then I think someone could complain to the local authority. 

BUT for a charity raffle, I think it a bit mean and pointless, unless the difference between the original and substitute prize was so great that it could be seen as falsely causing someone to buy a ticket.

I must say that this time of fundraiser in a charity shop is prone to causing upset. The above says "members" (in this case the staff an volunteers)  must be able to buy tickets but if they win that leads to accusations of unfairness. That's why you don't often see them in charity shops. 

Pollycat

user1977 said:

Pollycat said:

Olinda99 said:

baser999 said:

Agree with @ Baron_Dale. Beggars belief at times just what some people will find to complain about

ok so there's this raffle. First prize is a gold bar, second price a tin of toffees third price is a mars bar then various other prizes of a quality Street chocolate etc

I sell tickets and then withdraw the gold bar and sell it separately....

That's not a true analogy of this specific situation:

swingaloo said:

user1977 said:

swingaloo said:

Me personally, no. However one of the ladies who work in the shop is up in arms about the item being sold and is banding the word 'Fraud' around saying that some people will only have ought tickets because they hoped to win that particular prize.

So what is she planning to do about it? Fraud is a criminal offence, so clearly the fraud squad need to get involved...

(how much are the prizes worth?)

Probably between a tenner and twenty pounds each.

There is a vast difference between the value of a gold bar and a tin of toffees.

Depends on the sizes of the bar and the tin...(did nobody check the smallprint?).

As a 1 gram gold bar is being sold on the Royal Mint website for £79.99, it would need to be a pretty big tin of toffees (approx 6 kgs)...(but you knew that anyway)...

Is there any small print to check?

born_again

swingaloo said:

 Need clarification on this scenario please.

A shop is running a raffle and there are about 18 prizes. All the prizes are of a similar value, there is no 'big' 1st prize. When the draw is made the numbers will be displayed and the first person to produce a winning number gets first choice of prize and so on until all prizes are claimed.

When the raffle was announced  and tickets started to be sold there were only 11 prizes but more have been added as people have donated things to the shop and they have been added to the raffle prize shelf.

Now, one particular prize was added to raffle but it was later discovered that this prize was possibly worth a few pounds more than the other prizes and so it was taken out of the raffle the following day and sold in the shop.  

This was done after some of the tickets had been sold i.e

Raffle announced Monday and ticket sales commenced
Tues and Wed additional prizes were added to the raffle
Thursday one particular  prize was added to the raffle
Friday that prize was removed and sold separately.
Raffle to be drawn 2 weeks later

Is there any issue with one of the prizes being removed after the tickets started selling?

That's the telling statement.

As items were added. Many would not be aware of them.

Given it was a staff member who complained. They should not have been taking part. Or people could complin if they win that something was not right..

swingaloo

Just to answer some of the comments.

Yes it is a charity shop raffle.

It is a staff member who is complaining.

She has not bought a ticket.

The prize was not one of the 'better' ones.

There were several prizes when the tickets started to be sold.  Since we started more items suitable to use as prizes have been donated and as ticket sales were going very well we decided to ad more prizes to give more people a chance to win something. 

All prizes are as much of a muchness in terms of value, nothing is rubbish and equally nothing is very valuable.  They are a mix of the usual, toiletries, chocolates, biscuits, gloves, various toys, vouchers, a watch, wallet and purse, etc, etc.

In effect we have removed one prize and substituted it with several others and people now have more chances to win.

The raffle will be drawn by a random customer as usual, no staff will have any input into who gets what prize.

sheramber

Was this item advertised as in the raffle?

born_again

swingaloo said:

Just to answer some of the comments.

Yes it is a charity shop raffle.

It is a staff member who is complaining.

She has not bought a ticket.

The prize was not one of the 'better' ones.

There were several prizes when the tickets started to be sold.  Since we started more items suitable to use as prizes have been donated and as ticket sales were going very well we decided to ad more prizes to give more people a chance to win something. 

All prizes are as much of a muchness in terms of value, nothing is rubbish and equally nothing is very valuable.  They are a mix of the usual, toiletries, chocolates, biscuits, gloves, various toys, vouchers, a watch, wallet and purse, etc, etc.

In effect we have removed one prize and substituted it with several others and people now have more chances to win.

The raffle will be drawn by a random customer as usual, no staff will have any input into who gets what prize.

Good luck hope it goes well & you make plenty.

Sounds like someone is not happy with the way it has been run.