House raffles have become increasingly popular in the UK, offering a unique alternative to traditional property sales. Among the companies offering these opportunities, Raffle House has emerged as a key player. But as with any innovative model, many people wonder: is Raffle House legit, and are property raffles themselves even legal in the UK? The short answer is 'yes', but let’s explore this question and delve into the world of UK house raffles.

The Rise of House Raffles in the UK

The first company to bring to market a prize competition with a house as the main prize was Raffle House, who launched their first property in April 2018. According to the Founder Benno Spencer, his business idea was a combination of two factors.
The first seeing Dunston Low successfully ‘raffle’ his house in 2017 as a private competition. At that time house prices were rising rapidly, affordability metrics were becoming more stretched and the phrase ‘Generation Rent’ was coined. Benno’s younger brother then, and now, was struggling to get on the property ladder along with millions of other young and older Britons. This pent-up demand for a nation of house lovers, lest we forget an Englishman’s home is his castle, and the strong appetite for lottery type games, forged the idea of property prize competition platform Raffle House.
At that time, the most established business in the UK doing prize competitions was BOTB.com, established by William Hindmarsh. The company’s focus since its launch in the late 90s was car competitions. Older readers will remember the car competitions at airports which were the company’s first go to market product. The business was listed on the AIM stock exchange and had the lion’s share of the market. Roll forward to now and there are 100s of equivalent companies that offer cars, instant cash prizes, smaller luxury items as well as, perhaps unexpected, other interests like, barges, bikes and fishing rods and reels to the lucky winner. Despite the significant proliferation of this market, there remain few property prize competition companies.
This may be due to the rapid rise in number of various private, aka mom & pop, competition sites that launched in the wake of the early success of Raffle House and Omaze. If you head to Loquax.com you can find the list of failed entrants into the market for house prize specific competitions. A combination of unsuccessful competitions and the Gambling Commission shutting down sites due to unlawful practices has likely stunted market saturation.
Nevertheless, the appeal of ‘house raffles’ grows ever stronger. Why? The UK housing crisis continues to deepen; house builders are not hitting the necessary new homes targets while mortgage costs – normal compared to long-term historic averages – are high relative to last decade+ when base rates were at 0%.
That cheap debt fuelled house price growth such that the value of house prices today have, arguably, yet to adjust downwards to reflect what people can afford regarding servicing the mortgage debt, let alone accumulating a sufficiently large deposit to meet the loan-to-value requirements that banks set.
All these factors and a nation that loves a flutter result in the ongoing desire and participation in house raffles.

What is Raffle House?

Raffle House is Where Dreams Live and the home of aspiration and excitement. More prosaically, it is a UK-based company established in 2017 that specializes in house raffles, providing people with the chance to win properties through online competitions.
The concept behind Raffle House competitions is straightforward: instead of conventional property sales, which come often with high legal fees and inconvenient property viewings, homeowners can offer their properties as prizes in a raffle hosted by the Raffle House platform; participants buy raffle tickets for a fraction of the property’s value, hoping to win an entire house for a minimal investment in the draw. As mentioned earlier, part of the company’s motivation for launching was to provide a route to homeownership for those unable to access the property market or want to avoid typical costs, such as stamp duty..
In extremis, this thought extends to some of the most unfortunate in our society – the homeless. The idea of providing support to relevant homelessness charities as part of the ticket price was born. As a nation we have come to associate lottery entries with supporting charitable causes, a construct to which John Major’s government deserves credit whichever side of the bench you’re on. This further solidified the idea that consumers would get joy from participating in the knowledge that funds would also be directed to charity, rather than simply donating money.
Today, many of the prize competition platforms offer a donation as part of the ticket price. In the case of Raffle House, the business has over 20 amazing charities, and growing, that customers can elect to donate to even if they choose our free postal entries. The company seeks to provide choice at every opportunity, and by entering a competition each individual gets to Dream Big and Do Good.

How Do House Raffles Work?

House raffles, including those run by Raffle House, operate on a simple principle. A property owner decides to raffle their house instead of selling it through traditional means. They partner with a platform like Raffle House, which manages the raffle process. Tickets for the Raffle House competition are sold to the public, usually at an affordable price to encourage participation. Once a predetermined number of tickets are sold or a specific timeframe elapses, a Raffle House draw takes place. The lucky winning ticket holder wins the property, while the original owner receives payment from funds from ticket sales. The balance covers the cost of marketing and operational costs to run the competition.
Should you enter a Raffle House competition, when and how will determine the number of prizes you stand to win, and the number of tickets that are in the draw.
Every Dream Home Draw runs for two months, however, for those customers that enter the draw in the first month of the competition, all those tickets purchased will also be included in the Early Bird Draw which is a luxury car ranging in value between £50,000 to £70,000.
Customers can enter the Dream Draw competitions by making a single purchase of a ticket bundle, or they can choose to subscribe. Subscribing means that not only do you get triple the number of tickets for the same cost, but that you also get entered into subscriber exclusive weekly draws. That, plus knowing you are never going to miss a draw, is complete peace of mind when entering a competition.
At checkout, customers are given the option to donate a portion of their ticket sales to a charity of their choice ranging from animal welfare, health and wellbeing, to conflict charities and more. That is the final step before making the purchase, after which a confirmation email will be sent immediately detailing the nature of the purchase and number of tickets in the up-and-coming draws.
It’s critical to point out that there is also a free method of entry. This enables anybody to enter the draw at the cost of a second class stamp and envelope. This is a regulatory requirement, and in order for Raffle House to be a legal operation, the free method of entry must be placed as prominently as all other ticket bundles. Because entrants come via this method, conducting the draw on the final day of the competition is not an option, as sufficient time is required for all postal entries to arrive and be included. Therefore, the draw is conducted five days after the competition is closed, and the winner announcement made shortly thereafter.

Is Raffle House Legitimate?

Raffle House launched their first property competition in 2018 and awarded its first Dream Home in 2019. It was the first UK property prize competition platform, and it has, along with a few notable others, paved the way for ‘prize draws’, the fast- growing subsector in the lottery space.
By end of June 2025, the company was closing its 20th Dream Home Draw competition and continues to see strong engagement and growing brand recognition by customers and regulators alike, be they governmental or corporate bodies.
With over six years of trading under its belt, the business is well known to the industry regulator the Gambling Commission, is registered with the Fundraising Regulator and has engaged with the MP and members of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) on the nature of consumer protections in industry.
While these bodies have different remits collectively, they are in the business of ensuring that the company operates in accordance with legislation and Codes, ensuring Raffle House is safe. Given its position as the first prize competition platform, in the early years of trading the company had to overcome sceptics and criticism as to whether Raffle House scam their customers. Businesses, no matter how established, come in for scrutiny and to demonstrate legitimacy and to address the question, is Raffle House safe? The company has implemented and point to several aspects that seek to provide context for those considering entering a competition. Some of these are:
  1. Transparency: Raffle House provides clear terms and conditions for their house raffles, detailing how each Raffle House competition operates, and that the draws are managed by a third-party, Civica – so you’re in safe hands.
  2. Track record: We have successfully completed multiple property giveaways, with winners of Raffle House draws publicly announced, be it the mega Dream Home Draws or bi-monthly Bonus Draws.
  3. Compliance: Raffle House operates within the legal framework set by UK gambling laws and regulations for house raffles. That is, the Gambling Act 2005 states the requirements to be deemed a legal prize competition. See section 11 and Schedule 1 of the Act here.
In summary, as part of the entry method, businesses can either:
  1. Require that customers demonstrate skill, knowledge or judgement when entering a competition, and ensure that an acceptable exclusion rate is achieved
  2. Offer a free method of entry that has equal prominence to all other entry options. (Raffle House operate this format)
  3. Registered with the Fundraising Regulator: This independent body oversees fundraising practices for charitable institutions in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. While Raffle House itself is not a charity, its registration demonstrates a commitment to ethical practices and transparency in its house raffles. Every year the company has to demonstrate it complies as well as contribute its share
  4. In the media: over time numerous articles have been written on the company, from launch, to the first property prize awarded, to articles of the live Dream Home competitions (DM with cotswolds). The PR team at Raffle House has latterly been more focused on the commercial aspects of running a prize competition site: the extraordinary growth of the sector has caused friction with incumbents, so much so that the company has had to address the imbalance in the discourse that has been, up until now, reported one-sidedly.
  5. Customer support team: They offer responsive customer service to address queries about their house raffles and Raffle House competitions.
  6. Social proof: with more than 6,000 reviews across Google and Trustpilot the company has achieved 4.2* Google Reviews rating and a Trustpilot 4.3* Excellent rating.
As a final common-sense check, Raffle House has been registered with Companies House since 2017, providing a significant period of traceable business history for our house raffles. This long-term registration shows that we have been operating openly and legally within the UK’s corporate framework for several years, hopefully providing credibility to our operations!

Raffle House Winners: Real Stories Behind the Dream Home Draw

Depending on how you enter a Dream Home Draw will determine what other prizes your tickets will be entitled to. Every Dream Home draw runs for a two month period, however, those eager to get their tickets locked-in ASAP, if they purchase before the end of the first month, their Dream Home tickets will also be eligible for the Early Bird prize. These are always highly desirable cars, be that anything from 4x4 Land Rover Defender or Mercedes SL43 (sexy convertible for the non-petrol heads amongst us).
It’s worth noting that if you subscribe to Raffle House, you also get better value for your money as well as automatic and exclusive entrants to the weekly tax free cash giveaways.
When it comes to awarding prizes, Raffle House has been on a bit of a journey. One of the challenges with awarding property as the prize is it is a fixed, non-fungible asset that is likely located miles from the winner’s current life, work, friends and family. Soon after awarding the first home, the decision was taken to offer customers the choice of the value of the prize in cash, marketed as the ‘cash alternative’.
While all the cars and homes listed on the platform are highly aspirational and lust worthy, winner’s since have always received cash as the prize instead. It makes a lot of sense too, with cash you can do 100 and 1 different things that you can’t do with a physical asset, and we find that raffle house winners of other platforms typically sell their prized property soon after taking ownership – cash, and flexibility, is king.
If you head to rafflehouse.com, you can see all the Dream Home Draw winners, as well as all the other lucky people to have won a prize big or small. For each Dream Home Draw and Early Bird competition, every valid ticket entry is included in the draw which takes place a few days after the competition closes. This time delay allows for any postal – free entry – entries to be processed and included.
When Civica has conducted the draw, the winner will be contacted by email and phone. Once the magnitude of the win has sunk in, it is at that moment when they decide if they are prepared to go public and to what extent. The Raffle House T&Cs don’t mandate that people share their win widely and the business continues to respect that privacy. The psychology here is quite interesting. When Raffle House did a survey with market research company Onepoll of 2,000 people in May 2025 asking whether they would let the world know of their success, only 2% said they would. One of the most significant motivators for not disclosing was a fear of being targeted by criminals – 65% of people cited, with kidnapping of some form being the concern. This clearly resonates with the nation at large, with the survey getting good coverage from national papers including The Express.
Naturally, all entrants want to see the winner, albeit wished it was them. However, we respect our customers’ decision and, let’s be honest, most of us would keep big wins like this to ourselves.

Doing good and supporting a good cause

A final word – before the final word – touching on the charity partnerships. Since the beginning the company saw itself, through one lens, as a social enterprise incorporating charity donations as an integral part of the business vision. While household name charities are incredibly important, we would argue it is the smaller, perhaps less bloated charities that could benefit from additional funds and that a greater proportion of the funds would be directed to the cause. Today, Raffle House has over 20 charities that represent animal welfare, health, mental well-being, conflict and more, and each customer has the freedom to choose which charity they support with their ticket purchase. Certainly, the breadth of charity choice for customers, the impact of the donations for the charities themselves, the enduring nature of the partnerships, speaks to the mutually beneficial outcome that exists, facilitated by Raffle House.

Conclusion

In a world that is increasingly connected and online there are likely several innate and considered checks we all do ahead of engaging with a company or buying a product. By laying out the above, hopefully readers have the necessary data points to make a decision that feels informed as to whether ‘Raffle House is legit.’ The combination of industry oversight, track record, customer participation and Dream Home Draw winners should go some way to addressing any concerns. If you do decide to enter, remember you are making a difference while having some fun in the process. Join us as we all Dream Big and Do Good.