Complete Step-by-Step Guide

How to run a raffle online everything you actually need to know.

Seven steps, zero filler. We've been running online raffles for nonprofits since before most fundraising platforms existed. This is what we tell every organization that calls us minus the part where we let you ramble for ten minutes before we figure out what you're actually asking.

By The Chance2Win Team
Apollo Beach, Florida
Updated April 2026
~12 min read
 
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Get legal before you sell a single ticket Raffle laws in the United States are state-by-state, and they are not uniform. Some states have streamlined permit processes that take a week. Some require annual charitable gaming licenses. A few Alabama, Utah, and Hawaii among them prohibit fundraising raffles for nonprofits entirely. Washington and Kansas have their own complications. You need to know where you stand before you design the prize, build the page, or print a single flyer. The general rule: if you are a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit, you typically qualify to run a raffle in most states but qualifying and having a permit are two different things. Most states want a permit application, sometimes with a fee, before tickets go on sale. After the raffle ends, many states also require a short financial summary report. Where to check: Your state's Secretary of State office, or the Gaming Commission / Department of Consumer Affairs. The regulatory authority varies by state. Our raffle laws by state guide lists the key requirements for all 50 states.
The call that aged usWe have gotten a version of this call far too many times: "Hi we have our raffle starting tomorrow and need to set up the site." The problem isn't technical. The problem is that they needed to file for a permit two weeks ago and now they have a legal issue, not a tech issue. Get the permit before you do anything else. The calls we get at 5pm Friday are shocking. The urgency is always real. The preparation almost never is.

The no-purchase-necessary rule

If your raffle accepts entries across state lines and online raffles almost always do US consumer protection law requires you to offer a free entry method. The standard approach: publish a mail-in address where participants can send a self-addressed, stamped envelope with their name and contact information to receive a free entry. You do not need a free online entry form. Just a viable physical alternative. Include this in your official rules and on your raffle page.

Raffle and charitable gaming laws vary by state this is not legal advice. Consult a licensed attorney in your jurisdiction before conducting a raffle or fundraising activity.

US map with color-coded states showing raffle permit requirements, alongside a pre-launch legal compliance checklist for nonprofit raffles
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Choose your raffle format Format choice drives everything downstream: how you sell tickets, what platform you need, how long the campaign runs, and what your promotional strategy looks like. Getting this right early prevents expensive changes mid-campaign.
  • Traditional raffle All tickets in one pool, one or more prizes drawn at the end. The most common format. Simple to explain, scalable from small PTAs to citywide campaigns. Best for: short campaigns (4–6 weeks), audiences who want a clear shot at a specific prize.
  • Basket raffle (tricky tray / Chinese auction) Multiple prize baskets, each with its own ticket allocation. Supporters buy a ticket balance and spread entries across baskets they want. Best for: live events and galas where the browsing and choosing is part of the fun. Can also run online with the right platform.
  • 50/50 raffle Winner takes half the total ticket sales; organization keeps the other half. Simplest format of all. Best for: sports events, banquets, anywhere with a captive audience and limited setup time.
  • Queen of Hearts Progressive weekly raffle using a 54-card deck. Best for: organizations with large, loyal audiences who want sustained multi-week engagement. Not recommended if your supporter base is under a few hundred active people. The jackpot only grows if weekly ticket volume is consistent.
From the Raffle Hotline Format Mismatch

A caller wanted to run a Queen of Hearts raffle and make millions. Support asked how big their supporter base was. "Oh, we should do great." How many followers on social media? "About 25 people on Facebook." Queen of Hearts raffles work through momentum the first few weeks might be quiet, then people start talking, the jackpot grows, local media picks it up. That momentum requires volume to start. With 25 Facebook followers, you don't have enough fuel to get it going. Start with a traditional raffle. Build the audience. Then bring out the deck.

The lesson: Choose your format based on the audience you have, not the audience you hope to build during the campaign.
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Secure your prize and write your official rules

Get the prize in writing first

Never advertise a prize you don't have confirmed in writing. We have fielded the call where an organization was selling tickets for a motorcycle that belonged to someone's uncle who "said we could probably use it at a barbecue." That is not a prize. That is a potential legal problem and an extremely awkward refund conversation. Get a written donation agreement before the raffle launches. Two more prize-related warnings from experience: first, high-value prizes (anything over $600) will require you to issue a W-2G form to the winner and potentially withhold taxes. Disclose tax responsibility clearly in your rules before anyone buys a ticket. Finding out after winning a $15,000 car that you now owe taxes on $15,000 of income is not the experience you want to create. Second, specific experience prizes spa days, specialty experiences can create complications if the winner has restrictions or allergies. Choose prizes that can be transferred or substituted if needed.

Official rules what must be in them

Your official rules document is both a legal requirement and your protection if anything goes sideways. At minimum, include:
  • Organizer's legal name and tax ID
  • Raffle period (start and end dates)
  • Eligibility requirements (state(s), age, exclusions)
  • Entry methods, including the required free mail-in option
  • Drawing date and location (or live-stream details)
  • Prize description, approximate retail value, and delivery method
  • Odds statement ("Odds of winning depend on number of entries received")
  • Tax disclosure ("Winners are responsible for all applicable taxes")
  • Publicity consent clause
  • Official contact name, email, and phone
Always post an official prize list and drawing orderWe had a caller who drew two winners because a volunteer forgot they had agreed to have only one. In that case, a local pilot offered a private sightseeing flight for the surprise second winner and they held a final drawing between the two. A lucky outcome. But a little upfront clarity in the rules would have saved some genuinely tense moments and a lot of frantic phone calls.
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Choose your platform and set up ticket sales If you need to sell tickets to the public online and collect payment, you need a raffle platform not just the draw tool on this site. The draw tool handles drawing from an existing list. A platform handles the entire chain: ticket sales, payment processing, digital ticket delivery, entry management, and the draw.

The two honest options for nonprofits

Chance2Win builds and hosts a complete raffle website for your organization. You handle promotion; they handle everything technical compliance review, payment setup, ticket numbering, entry management, and the final draw. No coding required. Available to 501(c)(3) nonprofits with EIN verification. Launches in days. Supports all four major raffle formats. US-based phone support at (813) 699-9325. WPRaffle is a WordPress/WooCommerce plugin a perpetual license, self-hosted on your own server. For organizations with a WordPress developer. Silver, Gold, and Platinum editions with increasing feature depth.
Don't build your raffle on your church websiteA caller launched their raffle directly on their normal church website. A few hundred people tried to buy tickets simultaneously at launch. The website crashed immediately. Standard websites are not built to handle concurrent payment transactions. Dedicated raffle platforms are. This is not a hypothetical it happens regularly with the first launch attempt.

Platform setup checklist

  • Payment processor configured and tested (Stripe, Square, or Authorize.net)
  • Ticket pricing and bundle options set (1 for $10, 5 for $40, etc.)
  • Prize photos uploaded clear, professional images of the actual prize
  • Official rules linked on the raffle page
  • Test purchase completed do not skip this step
  • Raffle funds in a separate account or clearly separated in accounting
  • Drawing date and method disclosed on the page
A note on PayPalPayPal's standard terms of service do not allow raffles. Do not use PayPal as your payment processor for raffle ticket sales. Stripe, Square, and Authorize.net are the supported options. Note also that Stripe and Givebutter can suspend accounts mid-campaign for legal prizes involving wine, bourbon, cigars, or certain other regulated items. If your prize falls into a restricted category, Chance2Win Premium's multi-gateway support is your safety net.
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Promote the raffle The calls that break our hearts are the ones that go: "We launched our raffle two weeks ago and nobody is buying." Then we ask: "What's your promotion strategy?" And they say: "We posted it once on Facebook." That's not a strategy. That's a wish. If you have 300 followers on social media and post once, maybe 30 people actually see it. If none of them share it, that is your full reach. A good raffle can raise significant money for your cause but it only works if people know about it, and only a fraction of your followers see any single post organically.

The three-phase promotion plan

Phase 1: Pre-launch (2–3 weeks before sales open) Tease the prize without revealing everything. "Something exciting is coming to support our local heroes…" Build an email list. Create a sense of anticipation. Get your committee aligned before the public launch so your initial promotional push is coordinated, not scattered across 14 people in a group text. Phase 2: Active campaign (4–6 weeks of ticket sales) 2–3 social posts per week, one email announcement and one follow-up per week, and at least one visual update (prize photo, progress update, supporter story) every week. Post your current ticket sales total. People buy when they see other people buying. Display the live jackpot if your format supports one. Phase 3: Final push (last 5–7 days) This is when urgency becomes your tool. "48 hours left." Post screenshots of your progress. Tag recent buyers (with permission). A flash sale with a small bonus prize for purchases in a specific window can spike late-stage sales significantly.
From the Raffle Hotline The Grandma Effect

A youth soccer league in Georgia ran a raffle for sports equipment donated by local sponsors. They tracked digital tickets, encouraged social sharing, and assigned purchases to individual team members as a friendly competition. Sales were going well locally then Grandma started showing her QR code at the beauty salon. Orders started coming in from across the Midwest, including from Potosi, Wisconsin a city nobody on the team had even heard of. The raffle raised $12,000–$16,000 selling $10 tickets. The marketing budget was approximately zero. The Grandma Effect is real. Your most passionate supporters will share further than any paid ad.

The lesson: Give your most enthusiastic supporters the tools to share easily a clean link, a good QR code, a share-worthy prize photo and then get out of their way.
Three-phase raffle promotion timeline: pre-launch teaser phase, active campaign phase, and final push urgency phase

Ticket pricing and bundles

After nearly 20 years of analyzing raffle data, one pattern holds consistent: bundle pricing dramatically increases average order value. Single-ticket pricing averages roughly $11 per order. Bundle pricing three tickets for $25, ten for $50, twenty-five for $100 pushes average orders to $60–70. The tickets themselves have no intrinsic value until they're sold. Selling ten tickets at $60 raises far more than selling one at $10. Build bundles that feel like obvious value, and make the largest bundle the most prominent option on the page.
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Drawing day do it right The draw is the moment the entire campaign has been building toward. How you handle it determines whether participants feel good about the result or suspicious of it. Transparency is not optional here. It is the thing that earns you next year's raffle.

Before you draw

  • Confirm ticket sales are closed at the exact posted deadline. Not "close enough." The deadline you published is the deadline.
  • Combine all entries online purchases, mail-in free entries, and any in-person sales into one official list. Everyone in the pool equally.
  • Designate two independent witnesses who are not raffle participants.
  • Record the process a phone camera recording is sufficient for most situations. Someone will ask later.

The draw itself

Use the draw tool on this site for a verifiable result with a public record, or use the Chance2Win platform's automated draw feature which logs everything automatically. The verify link you share with participants lets anyone confirm the entry count, timestamp, and winning result independently no one has to take your word for it.

Announcing the winner

Contact the winner privately before posting publicly. No one wants to find out they won by seeing their name tagged on Facebook before getting a phone call. Once confirmed, post the announcement but do it properly. First name and last initial only unless they explicitly consent to full name publication. If you can get a photo of the prize presentation, use it. The single most effective thing you can do for next year's raffle participation is a smiling winner holding their prize with a link to the verify record beside it.
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Close out properly and keep your records Almost no organization does this well. We see it constantly. The raffle ends, the winner gets their prize, everyone breathes a sigh of relief and then nobody downloads the sales data. Six months later, the state sends a compliance inquiry. Two years later, someone asks how many tickets you sold. The email from the platform sits unread in a volunteer's inbox and that volunteer has since moved on. Keep. The. Records.
  • Download your sales data immediately after the draw. Every platform generates a CSV export. Download it to a shared drive where multiple people have access, not just one volunteer's laptop.
  • File post-raffle reports if your state requires them. Many do. Check your permit paperwork for the filing deadline.
  • Issue W-2G forms for prizes valued over $600. This is an IRS requirement, not optional.
  • Retain records for at least three years ticket numbers sold, sales totals, expenses, prize delivery confirmation. Some states require longer retention periods.
  • Conduct a debrief while the experience is fresh. What worked, what didn't, what would you change next time. Write it down. The team changes, the institutional knowledge doesn't have to.
The data everyone forgetsAfter a raffle ends, only a fraction of organizations download their supporter data. This is a goldmine of people who have already demonstrated they care about your cause enough to spend money supporting it and almost nobody uses it for the next campaign. Every raffle you run should be building your email list for the next one. The data is already there. Download it.
Ready to run your raffle?

We've run so many raffles we honestly stopped counting. We never stopped answering the phone.

If you have a question about any of the steps above permits, platform choice, pricing, format call us. That's what the number is for.

Frequently asked questions

In most US states, yes. Most states require nonprofits to obtain a charitable gaming license or single-event permit before selling raffle tickets. Some states Alabama, Utah, Hawaii, and others prohibit raffles for nonprofits entirely. Some states have simplified processes for small or event-based raffles. Check with your state's Secretary of State or Gaming Commission before you do anything else. Our raffle laws by state guide covers the key requirements for all 50 states. Raffle and charitable gaming laws vary by state this is not legal advice.
For 501(c)(3) nonprofits without technical staff, Chance2Win builds and hosts a complete raffle website. For organizations with a WordPress developer, WPRaffle is a self-hosted plugin. Avoid general fundraising platforms built primarily for donations they typically lack true raffle functionality, charge tip-based fees that cause 30–40% cart abandonment, and can't run specialty formats like basket raffles or Queen of Hearts. The free draw tool on this site is for drawing from an existing list it does not sell tickets or collect payment.
US consumer protection law requires that any raffle accepting entries across state lines offer a free entry method to avoid being classified as an illegal lottery. The standard approach: publish a mail-in address where participants can send a self-addressed, stamped envelope with their name and contact information to receive a free entry. You don't need a free online form just a viable physical alternative. Include the full instructions in your official rules and on your raffle page.
For most traditional nonprofit raffles, 4–6 weeks is the typical range. Shorter than that leaves insufficient time for word-of-mouth to spread; longer than that and initial momentum dissipates between the launch excitement and the closing urgency. Queen of Hearts runs indefinitely by design until the card is found. 50/50 raffles can be as short as a single live event. Build your sales window into your permit application if your state requires a drawing date disclosure at filing.
Raffle prizes are generally taxable income in the United States. For prizes valued over $600, the IRS typically requires the organization to report the winnings and issue the winner a W-2G form. For high-value prizes like vehicles, the tax liability can be substantial a winner who receives a $15,000 car owes taxes on $15,000 of income. This is why your official rules must include a tax disclosure before anyone buys a ticket, and why some organizations offer a cash alternative for high-value prizes. This is not tax advice consult a tax professional for guidance.