Terms of Use

1.Who we are, and what these terms cover

Local Draws is run by Local Draws Limited, a company registered in England and Wales, company number 17322132, registered office 70 Marsland Road, Sale, England, M33 3HG.

Here is what we do. We run prize draws in UK cities, and some draws that are open across the UK. Some prizes we buy ourselves. Others are provided by businesses we work with, which we call Prize Partners. Every draw page tells you which. You can enter for a chance to win, either by paying for entries or by entering free by post. When the draw closes, the winner is chosen at random. There is no skill involved and nothing about you makes you more or less likely to win.

These terms cover the website and your relationship with us. Your account, buying entries, payment, refunds, spending controls, what you may and may not do on the site, and how to complain.

The Draw Rules cover the draws themselves. Who can enter, how to enter, the free entry route, how the winner is chosen and how you can check that for yourself, how we tell the winner, verification, the claim window, prizes, and what happens when something goes wrong with a draw.

You can read the Draw Rules at /legal/draw-rules. If these terms and the Draw Rules say different things about a draw, the Draw Rules are the ones that apply. For everything else, these terms apply.

The Points Terms cover the points scheme. How you earn points, what they are and are not, and how we may change or end the scheme. You can read them at /legal/points-terms. Section 7 brings them into these terms.

Two more documents sit alongside these: our Privacy Policy and our Cookie Policy. They explain what we do with your personal data. We do not repeat any of that here.

The Code we work to. Local Draws is a signatory to the Voluntary Code of Good Practice for Prize Draw Operators↗ (opens on another website), published by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The Code sets standards for prize draws that offer both a paid and a free entry route. Several things in these terms are here because the Code asks for them, and where that is the case we say so, so you can see what we have committed to rather than having to take it on trust. You can read the Code on the GOV.UK website↗ (opens on another website), and the measures we have in place under it are published at /legal/code-compliance.

2.Accepting these terms

You accept these terms in two places.

When you create an account, you tick a box confirming you accept these terms and the Draw Rules. The box is not ticked for you.

Each time you enter a draw, you accept the version of these terms and the Draw Rules that is in force at that moment. The version number and date are at the top of each document.

We keep a record of when you accepted and which version you accepted, so that if we ever disagree about what you signed up to, there is an answer rather than an argument.

If you do not accept these terms, please do not create an account or enter a draw.

3.Changes to these terms

We may change these terms. Two reasons cover almost every case: the law changes, or the way Local Draws works changes.

How we will tell you. For any change that materially affects your rights, we will email you at least 30 days before it takes effect, and publish the new version here with a new version number and date. For minor changes, such as correcting a typing error or a broken link, we will publish the new version without emailing you.

When we have to move faster. If a change is needed to comply with the law, or to protect the security of the site or of your account, we may make it immediately and tell you as soon as we can afterwards, explaining why.

What happens to entries you have already placed.

An entry is governed by the version of these terms and the Draw Rules that was in force when you placed it. A later change cannot alter the deal on an entry you have already bought or posted.

This matters most for draws that are open across a change, and it is why every version carries a date.

If you do not want to accept a change, you can close your account under section 6 before it takes effect. Any entries you have already placed still stand, and if one of them wins you will still get your prize.

4.Who can hold an account

To hold a Local Draws account you must:

• be aged 18 or over
• live in the United Kingdom
• hold only one account

These are our rules, not something we are told to impose. The 18 and over rule is a commitment we have made under the Code, and we would apply it anyway.

How this is checked, stated honestly. When you create an account, you give us your date of birth and confirm that you live in the UK. If the date of birth you enter shows you are under 18, you cannot create an account. We do not check your address at that point. If you win a prize, we verify your identity before we release it. The Draw Rules explain it at section 12.

What that means for you. If you say you are 18 when you are not, your entries are void, we will refund what you paid, and we will close your account and delete your personal data apart from the entry and payment records we are legally required to keep, which we restrict so they are used only for that legal purpose. If you had been drawn as a winner the prize is drawn again. That is set out in the Draw Rules at section 3 and in the Privacy Policy at section 16.

One account each. One person, one account. You may not create a second account, use someone else's, or let anyone else use yours. If we find more than one account belonging to the same person, we may close all but one of them and void the entries on the rest.

5.Your account

Give us accurate information, and keep it current. We use your email address to confirm entries, to tell you if you have won, and to reach you about a prize. If your email address is wrong or out of date, you may not find out that you have won. You can update it in your account at any time.

Keep your account secure. Choose a password you do not use anywhere else, or sign in with Google or Apple. Do not share your password. If you think someone else has got into your account, email us at hello@localdraws.com straight away and change your password.

Your account is yours alone. You may not sell it, transfer it, lend it, or hold it on behalf of somebody else. Entries in your account must be for your own benefit. The Draw Rules deal with this in full at section 7.

You are responsible for what happens on your account, unless someone got into it through a failing on our side.

6.Pausing, closing and deleting your account

What you can do

Pause. You can pause your account for a short period, from a few days upwards. While it is paused you cannot enter a draw. This is for when you want a short break and nothing more.

Suspend. You can suspend your account for a longer period. A suspension lasts a minimum of six months and cannot be lifted early. While it is running you cannot enter a draw and we will send you no marketing of any kind — no emails, no messages. This is a Code commitment and the six month minimum is the Code's own figure. We are not going to make it easy to undo, because the whole point of it is that it holds.

Close permanently. You can close your account for good, at any time, by emailing hello@localdraws.com or using the control in your account. We will confirm when it is done.

Delete your data. Closing your account and deleting your personal data are not the same thing, and you can ask for either or both. What we can and cannot delete, and why some records have to survive, is explained in the Privacy Policy at sections 12 and 18.

What we can do

We may suspend or close your account, or void your entries, if:

• you break these terms or the Draw Rules in a way that matters
• we reasonably believe you are under 18, or do not live in the UK
• we reasonably believe you hold more than one account
• we reasonably believe you are entering by automated means, through a third party, or otherwise abusing the free entry route
• we reasonably believe your account is being used for fraud, or has been taken over
• we are required to by law

We will tell you, and we will tell you why, unless the law stops us. Where the problem is something you can fix, we will say so and give you a fair chance to fix it before we do anything permanent. Where we get it wrong, tell us under section 15 and we will put it right.

What happens to your entries and to a prize

This is the part people worry about, so here it is plainly.

If you pause, suspend or close your account yourself, entries you have already placed still stand. They go into the draw as normal. If one of them wins, we will contact you and you will get your prize, even though your account is closed. Closing an account is not giving up a prize you have already won.

If we suspend your account while we look into something, your entries stand and are held until we have finished. If we find nothing wrong, they run as normal. If we find something wrong, the position is in the Draw Rules at section 13.

If we close your account because you broke these terms, your entries in draws that have not yet closed are void and refunded. An entry that has already won is dealt with under the Draw Rules at section 13, not here.

We never keep money for entries that are void. If an entry is void for any reason, you get that money back.

7.Buying entries

The price. The price of an entry is shown on the draw page before you enter, in pounds sterling. The price you see is the price you pay. There is no booking fee, no card charge and nothing added at checkout.

How many you can buy. There is no limit on the number of paid entries you may buy in a single draw. That is deliberate, not an oversight. We control spending with a monthly limit you can set yourself, which is described at section 8, rather than with a cap on each draw. A per-draw cap does nothing to stop someone spending too much across ten draws in a week. A monthly limit does.

How you pay. By debit or credit card. Card payments are taken by DNA Payments Limited, company number 11154668. Your full card details go straight to them. We never see them and we never store them. DNA Payments is responsible in its own right for how it handles card data, and the Privacy Policy explains that at sections 10 and 11.

Credit card payments are subject to a monthly limit. See section 8.

When your entry is placed, and when the contract is made. Your entry is placed when your payment is authorised and we confirm it. That confirmation is the moment the contract between you and us is made, and not before. Putting entries in a basket, or starting a payment, does not place an entry.

Your confirmation. The entry appears in your account straight away, and we email you a confirmation. If neither of those happens, assume the entry was not placed, check your account, and contact us if you are unsure.

If your payment fails. No entry is placed and there is nothing to pay. Your bank may show a pending authorisation for a short time; it will drop off on its own. You are welcome to try again while the draw is still open.

If the draw has reached its maximum. Every draw shows a maximum number of entries. Once the maximum is reached, no further entries are accepted, by either route. The Draw Rules explain this at section 8.

Buying an entry earns you points. How points work — how you earn them, what they are not, and how we may change or end the scheme — is set out in the Points Terms, which form part of these terms. Entering free by post earns points too, and the Points Terms cover both routes.

8.Spending controls, and playing in a way that stays enjoyable

Everything in this section is here because the Code asks for it. We think all of it is right anyway.

Your monthly limit

You set your own monthly spending limit, and once you have set one, we cannot let you go past it. The limit applies across every Local Draws draw, in every city, not to one draw at a time.

You start with no limit. We do not ask you to set one when you register. After your first entry, your confirmation page invites you to set a monthly limit and links straight to the place in your account where you do it. You can set a limit, or change one you have already set, whenever you like, in your account, whether or not you have entered a draw.

You can set your limit to £0. That is a real option and it is on the list with the others, not hidden away. If you set £0, you cannot buy entries at all until you change it, and you can still enter any draw free by post.

Lowering your limit takes effect immediately. Raising it takes effect 24 hours after you ask. A limit you can raise in the moment is not a limit.

Credit cards

We do not accept credit card payments of more than £250 in any calendar month, per person. Once you reach £250 on a credit card in a month, we will ask you to use a debit card or wait until the next month. This is a Code requirement and we apply it across all your entries, not per draw.

The Code also bans credit card payments entirely for instant win draws.

Keeping an eye out

From the day you open an account, we look at how you are using Local Draws, to spot signs that it might be causing you harm. The kinds of thing we look at are how often you reach your monthly limit, sudden changes in how much or how often you enter, whether you are changing payment methods repeatedly, and anything you tell us yourself.

If we see something that concerns us, we will do something proportionate about it. Usually that means getting in touch and asking how you are. Sometimes it means suggesting you set or lower a limit. Where the signs are serious, it may mean stopping you from entering further draws. We would rather have an awkward conversation than take money from someone who is struggling.

You can always ask us to stop. Email hello@localdraws.com and tell us you want a limit set, or your account paused, suspended or closed, and we will do it. You do not have to explain why.

If you need help

If entering prize draws has stopped being enjoyable, or is causing you money worries, these organisations help for free:

9.Refunds, and your right to change your mind

This section will matter to you if you change your mind after entering, so it is worth reading properly.

Entries are not refundable once placed

When you buy an entry, you are buying a place in a draw that happens on a date we tell you before you enter.

The law gives consumers a 14 day right to change their mind about many things bought online. That right does not apply to an entry in one of our draws. The Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 do not give a cancellation right for contracts for services related to leisure activities where the contract provides for a specific date of performance. An entry is exactly that. The date of performance is the date the draw closes and the winner is chosen, and it is shown on the draw page before you enter.

So once your entry is placed, you cannot cancel it and get your money back just because you have changed your mind.

When we do refund you

We refund in full, to the card you paid with, in all of these situations:

• we cancel a draw. Every paid entry in it is refunded in full. Free entrants have nothing to refund, because they paid nothing
• you win, and you decide not to complete the identity check. We refund what you paid for the winning entry and the prize is drawn again. You are not out of pocket for declining a check you did not want to take
• we find out you are under 18. Everything you have paid is refunded
• an entry is void because of a mistake on our side, including a technical failure, a payment taken twice, or an entry we charged you for and failed to place
• your account is closed by us and the draw has not yet closed. Those entries are void and refunded

When we do not refund you

• you change your mind
• you did not win. The draw was performed and your entry did what you paid for
• you win and then decline the prize. You keep no refund, because the draw ran and your entry won. The prize was there and you chose not to take it. This is different from declining the identity check, which is refunded. We have set the two out separately because they feel similar and are not. If the reason you cannot take the prize is that it does not work for you practically, tell us before you decline — the Draw Rules at section 14 set out what we will do

How long refunds take. We start a refund within 5 working days of the reason for it arising. How quickly it reaches you after that is up to your bank, and is usually 3 to 5 working days.

10.What you must not do

One account, one person. Do not create more than one account, use someone else's, or let anyone use yours.

Enter for yourself. Entries must be for your own benefit. Do not enter on behalf of someone else, do not use a third party entry service, agent or concierge, and do not run or take part in a syndicate. If you win, you win, and you must be the person we verify.

No automated entry. No scripts, bots, macros, automated form fillers or bulk entry tools of any kind. Entries must be made by you.

Do not abuse the free entry route. One free entry per person per draw. Do not post repeated or bulk entries, do not post entries for other people, and do not post entries under names that are not yours. The free route exists so that anyone can enter without paying, and abusing it spoils it for the people it is there for.

Do not interfere with the platform. No attempts to break into it, overload it, get around its security, or interfere with a draw. Checking our draws is not interference — it is the opposite. We publish the information you need to reproduce any draw result yourself, and you are welcome to. What you must not do is try to influence one.

Be honest with us. Do not give us false information, and do not use Local Draws for anything unlawful.

Be decent to the people who work here. We will not accept abuse or threats towards our team.

What happens if you do. Depending on what happened, we may warn you, void the entries concerned, suspend or close your account, disqualify you from a draw, or refuse to release a prize. Where a decision affects a prize you have won, the Draw Rules at section 13 apply and you have a right to challenge it. We do not keep money for entries we have voided.

11.Our content, our brand, and other people's

Ours. The Local Draws name, our logo, the website, its design and its text belong to us or are used by us under licence. You may use the site for your own personal, non-commercial use. You may not copy, republish, scrape or resell any part of it, or use our name or logo, without our written permission.

Our partners'. Where a business provides a prize as a Prize Partner, its prize photographs, its name and its logo belong to it and are used with its permission. A business appearing on Local Draws as a Prize Partner does not mean it endorses us beyond providing that prize.

Businesses we have simply bought from. Where we bought a prize ourselves, we name the business so that you know what the prize is and where you can use it, and we do nothing more than that. We use its name only to describe what we bought. We claim no connection to it, and it has given us no permission, because none is needed to say truthfully what a voucher is for. That business has not provided the prize, has not sponsored or endorsed the draw, and is not associated with us in any way.

Other people's. Where a prize involves someone else's brand, that brand belongs to them. No draw is sponsored, endorsed or run by the maker of a prize, or by any business named on it. Where a Prize Partner has provided a prize, the draw page says so — and that tells you the business chose to take part, and nothing beyond that.

12.Anything you send us

You might send us a review, a photograph, a message or a suggestion.

You keep ownership of it. Sending it to us does not make it ours.

You give us permission to use it. By sending it, you give us a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use, copy and display it for running and promoting Local Draws, including on our website and social media. You can withdraw that permission at any time by emailing hello@localdraws.com, and we will stop using it and take it down where we reasonably can.

Please only send us things you have the right to send. Do not send us anything that belongs to somebody else, identifies somebody who has not agreed to it, or is unlawful, offensive or misleading. We may remove anything without notice.

Winners. We publish your first name and your city when you win, unless you ask us not to. We never use a photograph, or anything else that identifies you beyond your first name and city, unless you have specifically agreed to it. That is dealt with in the Draw Rules at section 15 and in the Privacy Policy at section 8. Nothing in this section overrides it.

Suggestions. If you send us an idea for improving Local Draws, we may use it without owing you anything.

13.When the site is not available

We do not promise the site will always be available.

Planned maintenance. Where we plan work that will take the site offline, we will try to do it at a quiet time and tell you beforehand.

If a draw is affected by an outage. If a fault on our side stops people entering a draw for a period long enough to matter:

• we may extend the closing time so that the time lost is given back, and we will publish that we have done it and why
• if the fault means we cannot run the draw fairly, we will cancel it and refund every paid entry, under section 9 and Draw Rules section 16

What we will not do is quietly close a draw early, or let one close while people cannot get in.

14.What we are responsible for, and what we are not

Nothing in these terms limits or excludes our liability for:

• death or personal injury caused by our negligence
• fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation
• anything else that cannot be limited or excluded by law

Your legal rights are not affected. You have rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 that we cannot take away, including the right to services carried out with reasonable care and skill. Nothing here changes them. If you want to know more, Citizens Advice can help.

Where we are at fault. If we fail to meet these terms, we are responsible for loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result of that failure. Loss is foreseeable if it is obvious that it will happen, or if we both knew it might when you entered.

Where we are not. We are not responsible for loss or damage that was not foreseeable, or that was caused by something outside our reasonable control and not our fault. We supply Local Draws for private use only, and we do not accept liability for business losses, loss of profit, loss of business or loss of opportunity.

What we owe you on a prize is not capped. Some prize draw operators cap their total liability at a small fixed sum, so that the cap can turn out to be worth less than a prize you had properly won. We have not done that, and we will not. If you win, you get the prize, or something worth at least as much, whatever that costs us. The Draw Rules say so at section 14 without qualification, and nothing in this section cuts it down.

Everything else is capped. For loss other than the prize itself — the foreseeable loss described above — what we owe you is limited to the greater of £1,000 or everything you have spent with Local Draws in the 12 months before the problem arose. This cap never applies to your prize, to a refund you are owed, or to anything at the top of this section that cannot be limited by law. We have set it this way round deliberately: the fair objection to a cap is that it can leave you worse off than the prize you won, and this one cannot.

Prizes. We stand behind every prize. Where we bought the prize, we supply it ourselves. Where a Prize Partner provided it, they supply it and we still stand behind it. Either way, if for any reason a prize cannot be provided, we cover it — that is in the Draw Rules at section 14, and it applies whoever the prize came from.

15.If something goes wrong: complaints

Tell us first. Email hello@localdraws.com with what happened, when, and what you would like us to do. Or write to Complaints, Local Draws Limited, 70 Marsland Road, Sale, M33 3HG.

What we commit to:

Both of those run from the day we receive your complaint. The acknowledgement sits inside the four weeks. It does not add to it.

If we need longer than four weeks — which should be rare, and usually means we are waiting on somebody else — we will tell you before the four weeks is up, explain why, and give you a date.

If you are not happy with our answer, reply and say so, and tell us what you think we got wrong. We will look at the complaint again, against our records and anything new you have told us, and give you a final answer.

If you are still not happy after our final answer, you can take the matter to the courts under section 17. Nothing in this section takes away any of your legal rights, and you do not have to complain to us before using them.

Complaints about a draw are dealt with in the Draw Rules at section 18, which sets out the same timescales and adds what we do about the draw itself while a complaint is open.

Complaints about your personal data. Tell us the same way, and you can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office. Details are in the Privacy Policy at section 19.

16.Privacy and cookies

What we collect, why, who we share it with, how long we keep it and what rights you have are all in our Privacy Policy. Cookies are in our Cookie Policy.

We do not repeat any of it here, deliberately.

17.Which law applies, and which courts

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales.

You can bring proceedings about these terms in the courts of England and Wales. If you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you can also bring proceedings in your own courts, and you keep the benefit of any rules of your local law that cannot be contracted out of.

18.General

Passing these terms on. We may transfer our rights and obligations under these terms to another business, for example if Local Draws changes hands. We will tell you if we do, and it will not reduce your rights. You may not transfer yours to anyone, because your account and your entries are personal to you.

If part of these terms does not work. If a court decides any part of these terms cannot be enforced, the rest still applies.

If we do not enforce something straight away. If we delay in enforcing a term, or do not enforce it on one occasion, that does not mean we have given it up. We can still enforce it later.

What makes up our agreement. These terms, the Draw Rules, the Privacy Policy and the Cookie Policy, together with the details shown on the page of each draw you enter, make up the agreement between us about your use of Local Draws.

How we contact each other. We will email you at the address on your account, so please keep it current. You can email us at hello@localdraws.com or write to us at the registered address.

Things outside our control. Neither of us is responsible for failing to meet these terms because of something outside our reasonable control, such as a failure of the internet or of a supplier, industrial action, fire, flood, or an act of government. If that happens we will tell you and do what we reasonably can to limit the effect. It does not affect your right to a refund where an entry could not be placed or a draw could not be run.

Other people. These terms are between you and us. Nobody else can enforce them.

19.How to contact us

Local Draws Limited

70 Marsland Road, Sale, England, M33 3HG

hello@localdraws.com

Company number 17322132

We answer emails as quickly as we can, and always within 5 working days. Complaints follow the timescales at section 15.