Most people organising a school raffle have not done it before, and quite often they have taken it on from someone who has moved on. This page covers the things that catch people out, in the order they tend to come up.

Does a school raffle need registering?

It depends on when you sell the tickets, and this is the part most people miss.

• Tickets sold only on the day, drawn at the fete. This is usually treated as an incidental lottery and normally does not need registering.
• Tickets sent home in book bags beforehand. Selling in advance usually makes it a small society lottery, which normally does need registering with your local council first.

We print tickets, we are not the regulator, so treat that as a starting point rather than a ruling. Your council’s licensing team will confirm it in a phone call, and they are used to the question.

How many should we order?

Tickets come glued in books of five. A rough starting point is two to three books per family, which for a school of 300 families is around 2,000 tickets. It is better to have some left over than to run out on the afternoon — and any you do not sell simply come back to the promoter.

1,000 tickets is £25 plus VAT, 2,000 is £43 plus VAT. Delivery to UK mainland is £7.95.

When do we need to order?

Standard printing takes 10 working days, then the tickets go out on a next-day courier. Count back three weeks from your fete and you will be comfortable. If the fete is sooner than that, ring us on 01794 340 100 — there are faster services and we will tell you honestly whether they will make it.

What has to be on the ticket?

Our templates already carry every field the law expects, and you fill them in online. If you are not sure what to put in one of them, call us before you approve the proof and we will go through the wording with you.

• The name of the school or PTA running the draw
• Who is promoting it, and their address
• The prizes, and the date, time and place of the draw
• The ticket price, and what happens to unsold tickets and money
• Your registered charity number, if you have one

If you ran one last year

Your ticket numbering should carry on from where the last batch finished rather than starting again at 00001 — two tickets with the same number in one draw is a real problem, and it cannot be fixed once they are printed. Tell us the last number you used and we will start the new batch after it.

Not sure where to start? Call us on 01794 340 100 and a person will answer.