The map
Three kinds of competition, and why the difference matters
2 of 23The guide
All guide pages
Start
- What comping is
- Three kinds of competition
- The law, in plain English
- Your first fortnight
Habits
Odds
Money and care
Once you start looking, everything calls itself a competition. A clearer map saves a lot of muddled hope. In Britain, the things worth knowing about fall into three loose piles: free draws, skill contests, and instant wins. Paid ticket draws sit awkwardly across the first pile, because the law often asks them to offer a free route as well.
Free draws
A free draw picks a winner by chance. You enter, you wait, someone or something chooses. The entry might be a form, a newsletter signup, a comment, or a postcard. If nobody is paying, or if a paid route is paired with a genuine free route, this is the everyday shape of a lot of brand promotions.
Your edge here is narrow. You can enter correctly. You can enter the number of times the rules allow, and no more. You can prefer draws with more prizes, shorter publicity, or a fiddlier entry method. You cannot think your way to the winning ticket. Anyone selling a system for random draws is selling comfort.
Skill contests
A skill contest asks you to do something a judge, or a correct answer, can prefer. A slogan in fifteen words. A photo. A recipe. A caption. A puzzle that is not a token question. Sometimes a tie-breaker sentence that is only read if several people get the factual question right.
This is the corner of the hobby where a person can actually be better than average. Not guaranteed. Better. Judges have tastes, sponsors have brands, and a tidy relevant entry beats a rushed pun more often than people admit. The dedicated page on tie-breakers and skill goes into how to practise that without turning every entry into a short novel.
A warning sits beside that encouragement. UK law does not treat a trivially easy question as real skill. “What colour is the sky?” on a paid-entry site is usually there as a legal costume, not as a test. If the winner is then drawn at random from everyone who got it right, you are in a draw, whatever the heading says.
Instant wins
Instant wins tell you quickly, sometimes in the same minute, whether that entry won a prize. A code on a packet. A spin on a brand site. A “scratch” panel after you buy something, or sometimes after you enter for free. The thrill is the speed. The odds are often printed, which is a gift, because you can read them instead of guessing.
Printed odds are not a promise about your afternoon. If a small prize is listed at 1 in 100, that is a long-run figure for that prize tier, not a schedule. You can lose twenty times in a row and the promotion can still be running exactly as described. There is a fuller, less rosy walk-through on the instant wins page.
A simple way to choose
Free draw
What decides it. Chance
Where effort helps. Correct entry, eligible prizes, quieter fields
Skill or tie-break
What decides it. Judgement, or judgement after a filter
Where effort helps. Relevance, clarity, a little craft
Instant win
What decides it. Chance, often with published odds
Where effort helps. Reading the odds, only entering what you like
| Kind | What decides it | Where effort helps |
|---|---|---|
| Free draw | Chance | Correct entry, eligible prizes, quieter fields |
| Skill or tie-break | Judgement, or judgement after a filter | Relevance, clarity, a little craft |
| Instant win | Chance, often with published odds | Reading the odds, only entering what you like |
Most people enjoy a mix. Draws for the pleasant background hum, skill contests when they have a spare twenty minutes and a fondness for words, instant wins when the prize is something they would actually use. The mix matters more than loyalty to one type.
If you want the legal version of this map, without being talked to like a statute, it is on the law page.