Housing raffles have taken the UK by storm – but how likely are you to win?
In an increasingly grim housing market, the chance to own a once-in-a-lifetime home for the price of a £5 ticket seems too good to be true.
And that’s because it usually is.
But amid a cost of living crisis, it is the chance to “escape from reality” that drives people to continue gambling on a win, one psychology expert has told Sky News.
This week, a woman who thought she had won a £2m villa in Nottingham was left “heartbroken” after the small print meant she had won £5,000 instead.
Loretta, a teacher, was over the moon when a representative from Win My Home visited her to say she had won the grand prize – but this turned out to be just 0.25% of what was advertised.
Competition organisers said they had actually made a loss, and the prize was a gesture of goodwill.
This £5.2 million house was a lottery prize – but the winner ended up with an (undisclosed) cash sum instead
Where did housing raffles come from?
Housing raffles first cropped up in 2008, as a way to beat the economic slump, when a couple from Devon raffled off their £1 million estate at £25 a ticket.
Then in 2018, Win a Country House sparked a revival of the trend, and more recently Omaze has been combining it with fundraising, promising entrants both the chance of winning a luxury property and a warm fuzzy feeling for donating to charity at the same time.
But although they still seem popular in the last three years, the number of competitions involving winning a house has declined, according to Loquax, the UK’s competition portal.
In 2020 there were 93, followed by 108 in 202.
In 2022 this dropped to 34 and this year there have been 29.
Win My Home declined to comment for this story – and Omaze has been contacted by Sky News for a response.
The North London home was “raffled” in 2019
But the lucky winner never got a chance to live in it
The charity house raffle
The most recent iteration of the housing raffle is Omaze’s million-pound house draw, which promises to raise at least £100,000 for each charity partner and give away a stunning home at the same time.
In 2020, their first home raised £250,000 for the Teenager Cancer Trust.
But a slick advertising campaign has boosted popularity, and their most recent draw – a Norfolk home – raised £1.4 million for the RNLI, while the one prior raised £1.9 million for Blood Cancer UK.
However, Omaze is still a business. Once each campaign is over, it takes the total amount raised and reimburses itself for the cost of the prize and the cost of marketing – it does not publicly disclose what this is.
Then it divides what is left, with 80% going to the charity and 20% to the company.
How likely are you to win?
Of the 264 competitions run since 2020, just 89 have resulted in a house being awarded, says Loquax.
Some 143 house raffles awarded a cash prize instead, and 18 issued refunds. Loquax wasn’t able to say what had happened in the case of 14 raffles.
The most expensive house awarded since 2017 was the £4.5m Omaze Cornwall River Rowey House property, won by June Smith.
But cash prizes are often lower. The first Raffle House competition dolled out £173,012, while the Dream Home Prize awarded £365,366 in place of the £1.2m home that was promised.
And they can do this because it is all there in the often-ignored small print.
So, you probably won’t going to win – why do you keep entering?
Annika Lindberg is a chartered psychologist who specialises in gambling addiction. She says these lotteries – and gambling of any kind – run on “intermittent reinforcement schedules”, which is the idea that we are motivated by the anticipation of a potential win, rather than any certainty.
“The unpredictability of the reward actually has a positive effect on our motivation,” she says.
And it is actually people who are poorer that are more likely to enter – particularly during times of recession.
“When you look at why people who have less financial means, and why they would be more motivated to gamble, it is because the meaning of a potential win is much greater,” she says.
“It gives people more motivation to escape from reality.”
While these lotteries aren’t nearly as addictive as betting shops, they can still be problematic, in part due to their “enormous mass appeal”.
“We should be concerned if a larger portion of the population starts taking the view that we have a reality of living that is so difficult that we want to escape,” she says.
“I think there is something very problematic about our population in any way at all being prompted to turn to escapism or ‘hope’ through any form of gambling during tough financial times.
“It will remain innocent for many but could prime others for more intense forms of gambling later.”
Ms Lindberg says, while “hope is a human trait that saves our lives” when “something like gambling taps into that, it’s not all that positive”.
Annika Lindberg
When housing lotteries fall foul of the law
The Gambling Commission has investigated a number of different housing lotteries and found many of these competitions were being run illegally.
In 2017 and 2018 – the most recent data available – it received 88 reports regarding 55 different raffles. Just 13 of these resulted in no further action being taken – meaning 77% of those investigated were breaking the rules.
And one of the key rules is who is going to benefit.
“You cannot create a lottery to raffle a house where the beneficiary (that is, the recipient of all lottery profits after expenses and prize costs are deducted) is not a good cause and the organiser/promoter of the lottery is not a non-commercial society,” the GC says.
“The only competition style that might be appropriate would be a free draw or prize competition.”
Casinos sponsoring two Premier League clubs are accepting UK customers without a licence, putting club officers at risk of prosecution, Sky News has learned.
The gambling websites, BC.Game and DEBET, are the matchday shirt sponsors of Leicester City and Wolverhampton Wanderers, respectively.
But an investigation by anti-gambling advert campaigners, shared with Sky News, suggests the casinos have continued to accept UK customers – despite this becoming unlawful after they lost their licences to operate in the UK.
DEBET lost its licence on 15 May, while BC.Game lost its licence in December 2024.
Neither club has indicated that they intend to end the sponsorships, despite criticism from campaigners and warnings from the Gambling Commission.
With the end of the 2024/25 season this weekend, both clubs are now half-way through two-year sponsorship deals with the casinos – putting them in a difficult position for next season.
The campaign group Coalition to End Gambling Ads (CEGA) told Sky News it was able to make deposits on both gambling websites, despite the sites having no licence to accept UK customers.
CEGA also successfully deposited cash on Burnley FC sponsor 96.com. Burnley are due to be promoted to the Premier League next season.
The findings come one week after the Gambling Commission warned five football clubs, including Wolverhampton and Burnley, that their officers “may be liable to prosecution and, if convicted, face a fine, imprisonment or both if they promote unlicensed gambling businesses that transact with consumers in Great Britain”.
The Commission had issued a similar warning to Leicester City in February.
It made clear then that the clubs must either cut ties with the casinos or ensure they are not accessible to UK customers “by any means” – including virtual private networks (VPNs) – software used to hide a user’s real location.
Other than the need to use a VPN, CEGA director Will Prochaska says it “really wasn’t very difficult” to access the sites.
The Gambling Commission declined to be interviewed by Sky News, but said that “where we have evidence that meets the standard for criminal prosecution we will take appropriate action”.
Head of enforcement at the Commission John Pierce previously said the body would “conduct ongoing spot checks as necessary to ensure they are not accessible to consumers in Great Britain by any means”.
Mr Prochaska, however, said the Commission was taking “far too long” to take action.
“Far too many children, far too many football fans, are seeing these adverts every day,” he said. “It’s got to stop.”
Leicester City’s sponsor has had no UK licence for almost six months
The three sites that appear on the matchday shirts of Leicester, Wolves and Burnley were previously licensed by TGP Europe, a company based on the Isle of Man.
On 15 May, TGP Europe surrendered its UK gambling licence to avoid a £3.3m fine, leaving DEBET and 96.com unable to legally accept UK customers.
Leicester City sponsor BC.Game has been unlicensed in the UK since it parted ways with TGP Europe in December 2024 – almost six months ago.
Jamie Vardy celebrating scoring for Leicester City last December.
Pic: PA
Mr Prochaska said he contacted Leicester City on 13 March to alert them that BC.Game was still accepting UK customers.
“In fact, it was one of the easiest for me to gamble on – there were very few checks whatsoever,” he says. “But Leicester don’t seem to have done anything about it, and it’s still on the front of their shirts.”
Leicester City FC did not respond to a request for comment.
Sky News was able to sign up to every single site
Bournemouth, Fulham and Newcastle United are also sponsored by casinos that were formerly licensed by TGP Europe, but have been unlicensed since 15 May.
These casinos (bj88, SBOTOP and FUN88) are no longer able to legally accept UK customers.
However, Sky News was able to use a VPN to sign up to all three casinos, as well as those sponsoring Leicester City, Wolverhampton and Burnley.
On all six websites, Sky was able to access QR codes for making cryptocurrency deposits. Sky News did not attempt to make any deposits.
All six casinos are forbidden by law from accepting UK customers.
Yet Burnley sponsor 96.com allowed Sky News to sign up using a Telegram account registered to a UK phone number.
The other websites all required phone numbers to be entered upon registration, which could be used as an additional layer of security to filter out UK customers.
However, most of the websites did not check whether the phone number provided was genuine.
Only one website, Leicester City sponsor BC.Game, did check.
However, after confirming the phone number’s authenticity, BC.Game allowed registration to proceed – even though Sky News had provided a UK phone number.
Sky News presented these findings to the football clubs concerned, to TGP Europe and to the Gambling Commission, but did not receive any comment.
Anyone concerned about their gambling, or that of a loved one, can visit BeGambleAware.org for free, confidential advice and support, or The National Gambling Helpline is available on 0808 8020 133 and operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
Alan Yentob, the former BBC presenter and executive, has died aged 78.
A statement from his family, shared by the BBC, said Yentob died on Saturday.
His wife Philippa Walker said: “For Jacob, Bella and I, every day with Alan held the promise of something unexpected. Our life was exciting, he was exciting.
“He was curious, funny, annoying, late, and creative in every cell of his body. But more than that, he was the kindest of men and a profoundly moral man. He leaves in his wake a trail of love a mile wide.”
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Yentob joined the BBC as a trainee in 1968 and held a number of positions – including controller of BBC One and BBC Two, director of television, and head of music and art.
He was also the director of BBC drama, entertainment, and children’s TV.
Yentob launched CBBC and CBeebies, and his drama commissions included Pride And Prejudice and Middlemarch.
Alan Yentob (left) with former BBC director general Tony Hall in 2012. Pic: Reuters.
The TV executive was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by the King in 2024 for services to the arts and media.
In a tribute, the BBC’s director-general Tim Davie said: “Alan Yentob was a towering figure in British broadcasting and the arts. A creative force and a cultural visionary, he shaped decades of programming at the BBC and beyond, with a passion for storytelling and public service that leave a lasting legacy.
“Above all, Alan was a true original. His passion wasn’t performative – it was personal. He believed in the power of culture to enrich, challenge and connect us.”
BBC Radio 4 presenter Amol Rajan described him on Instagram as “such a unique and kind man: an improbable impresario from unlikely origins who became a towering figure in the culture of post-war Britain.
“I commend his spirit to the living.”
A mother and three of her children who died in a house fire in northwest London have been named by police.
Warning: This article contains pictures of a fire in which people died
Detectives say Nusrat Usman, 43, Maryam Mikaiel, 15, Musa Usman, eight, and Raees Usman, four, died following the fire in Stonebridge, near Wembley, in the early hours of Saturday.
A woman in her 70s was taken to hospital but has since been released. A 13-year-old girl remains in hospital in a critical condition.
A 41-year-old man was arrested at the scene and has since been bailed. He was subsequently detained under the Mental Health Act.
The blaze gutted two homes in Stonebridge
Flowers and a blue teddy bear have been left near the scene, where crews wearing helmets and respiratory equipment were seen building scaffolding against the burnt-out buildings.
Neighbour Cecilia Marquis, 60, said she was “stunned by the devastation”.
“This will leave a devastating impact,” Ms Marquis, who witnessed the fire, said.
Witness Mohamed Labidi, 38, said he “can’t even look at the house right now”.
“We used to socialise together.
“They’re very good people, no problems on their side at all. It’s really shocking. It’s a really strong community here, we look after each other.”
A neighbour, who asked not to be named, said: “It’s horrible, we saw people running outside.
“It’s hard to process. I only just moved in, so it’s hard to think about it.”
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Emergency services on the scene. Pic: PA
Eight fire engines and around 60 firefighters responded to the blaze, London Fire Brigade (LFB) said.
Two terrace houses, each with three floors, were severely damaged in the fire, which was under control by around 3.25am, the fire service added.
Superintendent Steve Allen, from the Met’s local policing team in northwest London, said: “Our thoughts go out to all those impacted by what has happened.
“Specialist officers are continuing to support the wider family who have asked for privacy at this deeply upsetting time.
“Local officers are working closely with officers from the Specialist Crime Command on what continues to be a very complex investigation.”
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said in a post on X: “This is devastating news and my thoughts are with the family, friends and wider community of the four people who sadly have lost their lives.
“I remain in close contact with the London Fire Brigade and Metropolitan Police as they work to establish the cause of the fire and offer support to all those impacted.”
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