Running a raffle using Classlist

Some schools have facilitated their raffles online using the Classlist Event ticketing system and have given us feedback that it saved lots of time and made both the PTA and parents' lives easier! 

During Covid-19 you may want to consider a virtual raffle - and online payments are key to that!

You can use our events feature to sell tickets/take payments that would entitle people to take part in your raffle.  

Here's how:

• Name the event ‘Prize Draw’
• Attach a document with photos of your prizes - or list them in the event description
• Issue say 1000 events tickets at £1 each (and use Stripe to collect the money)
• Parents can select the number of tickets they want.
• These event tickets entitle parents to a raffle ticket
• Use the Classlist report of ticket sales to prepare your ticket to put 'in the hat'. 
  Eg you can just use the 'name' column as your tickets.  Or add a ticket number to each ticket sold (each row in the report).  You could drag the numbers down to autofill them.   
• If you want to print out the tickets to draw them, you could increase the row depth of your printout of your downloaded report to make each big enough to cut up to make a ticket.
• Or you could use random number generator software to pick a number if you want to do the whole thing electronically.
• You may want to video stream the prize draw and show the prizes.

NB The Classlist system limits transactions to 20 tickets per purchase, which is normally to avoid parents bulk-buying tickets to a popular event.    If you think your parents will want to spend more than £20 on raffle tickets you could add a £10 ticket called '10 raffle tickets' .  Remember you will then need to allocated those people 10 raffle tickets even though they will be listed as having 1 x ticket in the spreadsheet.  Hope that makes sense.

Regulations

It is your PTA or school, and not Classlist, which is operating the raffle.

You still need to meet any local regulations around operating a raffle, for instance if your raffle normally requires a local licence.    

However, some charitable fund-raising raffles and lotteries don't require any gambling licence or registration in the UK.  That is if they are wholly for charitable or other ‘good cause’ purposes - and cannot be run for private or commercial gain.

See more details here.

Eg these do not need licences:

- An 'incidental lottery' is a fundraiser that is incidental to an event such as a charity fundraiser.
- A private society lottery is promoted only by authorised members of a society and each person to whom a ticket is sold either is a member of the society or on premises wholly or mainly used for the administration of the society.

These 2 types of 'lottery' are often run by PTAs, involving parent members and school premises. 

Stripe

Whilst gambling is not permitted via Stripe, Stripe says that charity raffles are not restricted, as these are closer to donations.   You would need to be a charity and what you are raffling off must not be in restricted categories.

(These include adult content, drugs, counterfeit goods and categories which are unlikely to ever appear in a school fundraiser!).

You could email Stripe to confirm your prizes etc if you wish:

Classlist charges NO fees unlike other event and payment platforms.