Registering your small society lottery.
FanFund gives you the software and the payments. But the lottery itself is run by your club, and in the UK your club is the promoter that needs to be registered. The good news: it's cheap, quick, and light-touch.
Do you need to register?
Almost certainly yes. To run a 50/50 draw for a non-commercial club, charity, sports or cultural society in Great Britain, you register as a small society lottery with your local council (the licensing authority for the area where your club is based). The society must be non-commercial: it can't be run for private or commercial profit.
FanFund automatically holds your draws within the small-society limits, so you stay in this simple category rather than needing a full Gambling Commission operating licence.
The limits
- No more than £20,000 of tickets in a single draw.
- No more than £250,000 of tickets across a calendar year.
- At least 20% of proceeds must go to the society's cause.
FanFund enforces the £20k and £250k caps for you and splits each pot 50/50, so you're always within bounds.
What it costs
- Around £40 to register with your council.
- Around £20 a year to renew.
That's the whole cost. There's no per-draw fee to the council.
How long it takes
Usually a few weeks. It's a registration, not a vetted licence, so there are no background checks or hearings: the council registers you unless there's a specific reason not to. You can get your club set up on FanFund in the meantime and schedule your first draw for once you're registered.
How to register
- Confirm your group is a non-commercial society (a club, charity, sports or cultural group raising money for its purpose).
- Find your licensing authority — it's your local council. Search “[your council] small society lottery registration”.
- Complete their application form and pay the registration fee.
- Once registered, you can run draws. After each one you file a short return to the council (FanFund gives you the figures).
Your responsibilities as promoter
You're the promoter: keep your registration current, file returns on time, make sure tickets are only sold to over-18s, and run the lottery for your society's benefit. FanFund handles age checks, the draw, the money and the records to make all of this easy.