Something went wrong In a housing market where the average deposit is more than £60,000 for first-time buyers, wagering a fiver on the prospect of winning a mortgage-free home can seem like a worthwhile punt. The internet is littered with such offers: last year more than 150 property raffles were hosted in the UK, up from just four in 2017. However, despite the promise that one lucky person will win the keys to their own home, a limited number result in a property changing hands. Of more than 700 house raffles in the UK since 2017, just over half have ended in an entrant owning a home, according to competition analyst Loquax. On Raffall, one of the largest raffle platforms, just 10pc of the 167 prize draws concluded with a house winner, while Raffle House has closed 24 out of 25 competitions without a single house being given away. In most cases, the excuse is written in the small print: not enough tickets sold to meet the threshold. A lump sum, often a proportion of the total revenue raised and typically well below the value of the property on offer, is the usual consolation prize. However, the platforms hosting the competitions take a share of the proceeds whether there is a home winner or not. This means there is little incentive to pull up the drawbridge. As the average house price approaches eight times the average income, it raises the question of whether raffling platforms and the individuals who dangle their homes in front of disillusioned Britons are selling a homeownership dream that simply doesn't exist. A rise in independent prize draws Like so many trends of the past few years, the property raffle boom began during Covid-19. With little else to do but sit at home, stories of ordinary people winning multimillion-pound mansions for the price of a pint captured an otherwise bored public. "It was a distraction from being locked up in the house all day," says Jason Dale, the founder of Loquax, which has been tracking lotteries and raffles since 1998. "A couple of houses went up, and they sold really well. So there was a bit of a snowball effect." Between 2019 and 2021, the number of "win a house" raffles jumped by nearly 900pc, from 13 to 127. Although corporate property raffles had been running in the UK since at least 2017, the pandemic opened the door to a flurry of less-polished independent prize draws. Where the likes of house draw company Omaze offered properties usually reserved for film stars and Premier League footballers, ordinary people started using the raffle format as an alternative way to sell their relatively modest homes, bypassing estate agents and seizing the possibility of generating more than the property was worth. In most instances, a minimum-entry target is set with the caveat that should entries fall short, the "winner" will receive 50pc of total ticket proceeds instead of the property. Platforms such as Raffall take a 10pc cut for hosting. But as more and more raffles flooded the market, the number of competitions successfully hitting their target dropped off a cliff. Despite Raffall prize draws resulting in 17 home winners between 2020 and 2021, the next four years yielded just one. They won the keys to 52-year-old Imelda Collins's cottage in Ireland, which was successfully raffled off in 2025 after the New York Times picked up her story. This is despite Raffall having hosted some 55 competitions during that time. Dale doesn't believe there is necessarily anything untoward about the low success rates of these competitions, but rather that independent rafflers are battling over a shrinking pool of entrants for whom the novelty of house draws has started to wane. "It's harder to cut through the noise because everyone's advertising their prizes and competitions," he says. "I don't think there's a market now for individuals to do it – not even half of the raffles run by individuals end in somebody winning a home." The quality of the homes, compared with the big prize-draw companies that offer castle-like homes and spend vast amounts on advertising, makes it even less likely a raffle will hit its threshold to produce a home winner. In one recent independent house competition hosted on Raffall, the prize was a tired-looking family home, but it required a minimum of 200,000 ticket sales. "[The people who raffle their homes] think it's going to be quite easy, like, 'Everyone's going to come flocking in, buy my tickets, happy days.' It just doesn't work like that," adds Dale.

Cash alternatives fall short Those who have forked out £5 (or more) in the hope of winning a home are left bitterly disappointed when the deadline passes. On platforms such as Raffle House, where customers are encouraged to sign up for rolling subscriptions that automatically enter them for regular prize draws for properties, the pain risks being even more acute. "While these raffles can seem exciting ... most people see no return on their ticket," says Sam Richardson, of Which?. "Even if you're lucky enough to win the draw, you may not walk away with a new house, but instead receive a lump sum based on how many tickets were sold." Yet in many cases the "cash alternative" falls well short of the value of the advertised property. In 2019, the Advertising Standards Authority upheld complaints against Raffle House after finding that it had misled entrants by awarding a cash prize that was "not a reasonable equivalent" to the property on offer. Among the most bruising cases of injustice came in 2023 when a schoolteacher thought she had won a £2m mansion in Nottingham via the platform Win My Home, only to be presented with a cheque for £5,000 as a "goodwill gesture" after the raffle failed to hit target. "It was heartbreaking," she said at the time. "I entered it thinking this could be a new start, maybe it might happen." Win My Home shut down shortly after. Because house raffles are classified as "prize competitions", they don't fall under the remit of the Gambling Commission, which imposes rigorous regulations on companies to prevent fraudulent activity. Instead, prize draw operators are expected to sign up to the recently published Voluntary Code of Good Practice. Dale says that as the property raffle market has evolved, consumers have generally become more savvy when it comes to which ones they enter – and which to avoid. "People are a bit more cautious now," he says. "They may have entered a couple of competitions before and found it [ended with] a cash prize, and gone, 'Well, there's no point.'" 'A fun way to dream' Stelios Kounou, who founded Raffall in 2015, says the site was never meant to offload properties and that it still makes up only a small part of the business. He doesn't think anyone participating in property prize draws should see them as a viable route to homeownership and defends the lack of home winners, saying most would prefer a modest cash prize to come away empty-handed. "They will never replace buying or selling a house," he says. "But what would you prefer: a few grand in cash or nothing at all?" He adds that entrants can see minimum thresholds before entering and can view odds once they have bought at least one ticket, while cash is held in escrow until a winner – randomly selected by the platform – has been found. This prevents individual rafflers from running off with the proceeds. Raffle House makes a similar point to Kounou, claiming that winners are more than happy to choose "life-changing, tax-free cash" over properties. However, it refused to say how many of its competitions reached the necessary threshold. In its legal terms, it stipulates that if the minimum number of entries is not met, the winner will automatically receive a cash prize of 70pc of the total ticket revenue. This is in contrast to large companies like Omaze, which guarantee a home winner regardless of how many tickets are sold. "Homeownership has drifted out of reach for a generation of aspiring buyers, and whether it's the home or a life-changing cash windfall, prize draws offer a fun way to dream," says a spokesman for Raffle House. Either way, there is little sign of them disappearing: 12 new independent competitions have launched so far this year, all demanding cash for the promise of a house at the end of it for one lucky winner. A year on from her own prize draw, Collins, who for her £300,000 cottage sold some £950,000 worth of tickets in the final hours, believes the novelty factor of house raffles has worn off. But she adds that they can still offer rewards for those willing to put in the same "hard work and perseverance" she did and wouldn't deter anyone from trying to raffle off their own house. "You'll never know what's possible unless you take the chance," she says. "In my experience, a positive attitude, perseverance, and a strong work ethic are key ingredients for a successful raffle." That said, if their recent success rate is anything to go by, aspirational homeowners would perhaps do better to put their fiver towards a deposit rather than betting on a property they will probably never get the keys for.