Glossary
The terms you'll see across UK prize competitions and on Fair Shout, defined in plain English. If you'd like the longer explanation, each term links through to the article where it lives.
- Prize competition
- A legally distinct category under the UK Gambling Act 2005. Unlike a lottery, a prize competition doesn't need a Gambling Commission licence, if it includes a genuine skill question. See How UK prize competitions work.
- Lottery
- A licensed UK gambling product where entry is pure chance, with no skill element. Lotteries are heavily regulated; prize competitions are not.
- Skill question
- The multiple-choice or trivia question you're asked to answer to enter a prize competition. It exists for legal reasons — to keep the competition out of gambling-licence territory. Usually easy enough that almost everyone gets it right.
- Ticket price
- What you pay for one entry. Often between £1 and £25 in the UK. Most operators offer discounts for buying multiple tickets.
- Ticket cap (or ticket allocation)
- The maximum number of tickets the operator will sell for a given competition. Knowing the cap is essential — without it, you can't compute your worst-case odds.
- Tickets sold
- How many tickets have been bought at the point you're looking. This changes constantly throughout a live draw. See Why ticket counts change.
- Draw date
- When the winner will be selected. Usually livestreamed by the operator on Instagram or Facebook.
- Odds now
- Your probability of winning if the draw were drawn at this exact moment, using the current ticket count. Fair Shout updates this number every few minutes for each live competition.
- Odds if sold out
- Your probability of winning in the worst case, assuming the draw fills its entire ticket cap before closing. A useful "floor" figure.
- Average return (per £1 staked)
- Average pounds you'd get back per pound staked, if you played the same kind of draw thousands of times. It isn't a forecast for your single ticket — it's a way to compare the fairness of different draws. See Odds vs luck.
- Cash alternative (cash-alt)
- Many operators let a winner take a cash payment instead of the physical prize, usually at 60–85% of retail. This is the true effective prize value for most players — because most people would take the cash.
- Instant wins
- Draws where the operator distributes a prize pot across many winning tickets rather than picking one grand-prize winner at close. A ticket either hits a prize or it doesn't — usually revealed at purchase. Sell-through doesn't affect your per-ticket odds. On Fair Shout these cards are tagged INSTANT WIN, and the value figure shown is the average return per £1 staked across the whole pool (a.k.a. RTP).
- Value for money
- How close the money paid into the ticket pool is to the prize value. £50,000 of tickets sold for a £50,000 car is break-even. £100,000 of tickets sold for the same £50,000 car means half the pool is operator margin.
- Top Shout
- Fair Shout's highest rating — the prize is bigger than all the tickets sold so far, so your average return is above £1.50 per £1 staked. Rare, and usually found early in a draw's life before it fills up.
- Good Shout
- Average return is ≥£1 per £1 staked — break-even or better on paper. Common, and a fair deal if you'd enjoy playing anyway.
- Fair Shout
- Mid-range value. Average return is ≥£0.50 per £1 staked. The median competition across UK operators sits here.
- Poor Shout
- The ticket pool is well above the prize value. Average return is below £0.50 per £1 staked. You're paying primarily for the entertainment, not the prize value.
- Adaptive refresh
- The schedule Fair Shout uses to re-check operator sites. Draws closing within the hour are checked every 3 minutes; distant draws, every 2 hours. Saves resources without missing the late-stage rush.
- Gambling Commission
- The UK regulator for lotteries and gambling. Prize competitions generally sit outside its remit if they include a qualifying skill element, but operators that stray close to the line can still be investigated.
- ASA (Advertising Standards Authority)
- Regulates UK advertising, including how prize competitions (and comparison tools like Fair Shout) describe odds, prizes, and returns. We take care with our copy for this reason.