Prizes that bring people back

A prize has one job: to get someone through your door again. A big cash prize once a year does less for you than a small prize every week that people talk about.

Here's how to choose prizes that bring people back, and the rules that keep it fair and legal.

Prizes that get spent in your pub

The best prize is one that brings the winner back to collect it.

Bar tabs. The winner has to come back to spend it, and it gets spent on your stock.
Food. A meal for two on a quieter night fills a table you'd otherwise have empty.
Something for next time. A free entry or a reserved table for the next quiz or match.

Cash is the weakest prize. It leaves with the winner and gets spent somewhere else.

Little and often beats big and rare

A weekly prize gives people a reason to play every week. A monthly prize gives them a reason to keep playing even when they didn't win this week.

At Teal Farm, our all-day phone quiz has two prize levels. The weekly winner gets a £20 bar tab. The monthly winner, our Washington Quiz Champion, gets a £100 bar tab. Someone who's fourth on a Wednesday still has a reason to come back on the Saturday.

A monthly leaderboard also helps the regulars who play often but rarely win a single night. Showing the top few on your TVs makes people want to see their name up there.

Keep it free to enter

This is the simplest way to stay out of trouble.

The Gambling Commission explains that prize competitions rely on "an element of skill, knowledge, or judgment" to decide the winner. Because the result isn't down to chance alone, a genuine prize competition isn't classed as a lottery and the Commission doesn't regulate it as gambling.

There's a catch worth knowing. The Commission also says a competition should be hard enough to put off a good number of people or stop many of them winning, and that simple multiple choice questions usually fall short. If your quiz is free to enter, that matters much less. If you start charging entry and paying out prizes, read the Commission's guidance first.

Free draws, where winners are picked at random, are a different thing again. They're only outside lottery rules if entry is genuinely free, or there's a free route that's just as easy as the paid one. This isn't legal advice. If in doubt, ask your licensing authority.

Don't make prizes reward drinking

Pubs have an extra rule to think about. The mandatory licensing conditions ban irresponsible promotions. These include drinking games, and prizes that reward buying or drinking alcohol over 24 hours or less where that risks the licensing objectives.

So a bar tab for winning a quiz is fine. A prize for whoever drinks the most pints during the quiz is not. Keep prizes about knowledge or luck, never about how much someone drinks.

If the prize can be spent on alcohol, make sure the winner is old enough to drink.

Write the rules down

Arguments over prizes usually come from rules that weren't written down. The advertising rules for promotions, in the CAP Code, give a good checklist of what to say up front:

The closing date, if there is one
The number and type of prizes
Any restrictions, such as age or where you live
How winners are picked
How and when winners will be told

The Code also says promoters must award prizes as described, normally within 30 days, and make it possible to show that a valid award took place.

For a pub, that means a short set of rules on a card or a web page. Something like:

Weekly prize: £20 bar tab for the top score Monday to Sunday. Free to enter. 18 or over. One entry per person. Ties go to the earliest finish. Winners shown on our TVs on Monday. Claim within 30 days.

Keep it fair

One entry per person. Say so, and enforce it.
Staff don't win. Let them play for fun if they like, but give prizes to customers only.
Tie-breaks decided in advance. Earliest finish, a sudden-death question or a split. Pick one and stick to it.
Show your workings. Put the leaderboard on the TVs or online so people can see how the winner won.

Tell everyone who won

A prize nobody hears about doesn't bring anyone back. Put the winner's name on your TVs and your social pages. Take a photo at the bar if they're up for it. People want to be next.

Sources

Gambling Commission: Definitions, from Understanding the consumer landscape in free draws and prize competitions
legislation.gov.uk: The Licensing Act 2003 (Mandatory Licensing Conditions) (Amendment) Order 2014, Schedule
ASA and CAP: The CAP Code, section 8: Promotional marketing

We checked every source on 23 October 2026. Rules change, so check the latest version before you act. Nothing here is legal advice.