How to Run a Raffle: A Step-by-Step Organizer Guide

If you’re figuring out how to run a raffle for a school, club, church, or nonprofit, this guide walks through the organizer’s side of it end to end: choosing prizes, pricing tickets, structuring entry tiers and bundles, promoting the sale, running the draw, notifying the winner, and keeping the records you’ll want on file afterward.

Looking for a plainer explanation of what a raffle is and how the format works before you commit to running one? Start with what a charity raffle is and how it works instead. This guide assumes you’ve already decided to run a raffle and need the step-by-step plan for pulling it off.

Is it legal to run a raffle in your state?

Raffles are regulated as a form of gambling in most U.S. states, and the specifics vary widely. Some states require your organization to register or hold a permit before you sell a single ticket. Others cap prize values or limit which types of organizations can run a raffle at all. A handful of states go further and restrict the online sale of raffle tickets specifically, even where in-person raffles are otherwise permitted: Alabama, California, Hawaii, Indiana, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Utah, and Washington currently fall into that category.

Whether a raffle is permitted for your organization — and what’s required to run one — depends on several factors, not just your state. It’s the organizer’s responsibility to research the applicable rules and confirm legality for their own situation, including with the relevant authorities and their own legal counsel as needed. RallyUp doesn’t provide legal advice or confirm that any campaign is legal.

Before you announce a date or begin selling tickets, confirm two things: whether your organization qualifies to run a raffle in your state, and whether online ticket sales specifically are permitted where you’re located. For a state-by-state breakdown, see raffle laws by state.

If your state restricts raffles or online raffle ticket sales, a sweepstakes-style giveaway is a separate format worth researching on its own terms — it always includes a free method of entry and carries its own rules and requirements, which are not the same as a raffle’s. See raffles vs. sweepstakes vs. auctions for how the formats differ before you decide which one fits your situation.

How to run a raffle in 7 steps

Once you’ve confirmed a raffle is permitted for your organization, the execution comes down to seven decisions. Work through them roughly in order — pricing and entry tiers depend on the prizes you line up first, and promotion depends on both.

1. Choose prizes that are worth the ticket price

Start with the prize, not the price. A single high-value prize (a getaway, a big-ticket electronics bundle, a significant gift card) tends to sell more tickets than several small ones, because it gives supporters a clear reason to buy in. If you’re running multiple prize tiers, keep the list short — three well-chosen prizes usually outsell ten mediocre ones.

Source prizes through sponsor or vendor donations first to protect your margin, and only purchase a prize outright if it directly drives ticket sales. For a longer list of ideas by budget and audience, see raffle prize ideas.

2. Price your raffle tickets

Most nonprofit raffles price a single ticket somewhere between $10 and $25. Price too low and you undervalue the prize and leave money on the table; price too high and you shrink the pool of people willing to buy on impulse. The right number depends on your prize value, your audience’s typical gift size, and how many tickets you realistically expect to sell.

For the full pricing formula — including how to work backward from your fundraising goal and expected sell-through — see how to price raffle tickets.

3. Set up entry tiers and ticket bundles

Bundling tickets at a discount is one of the most reliable ways to raise your average order size. A common structure looks like:

• 1 ticket for $10
• 3 tickets for $25 (a modest discount that nudges single-ticket buyers up)
• 10 tickets for $75 (the best per-ticket rate, aimed at your most engaged supporters)

Keep it to two or three tiers. More options create decision fatigue and tend to reduce conversions rather than increase them. If you’re running multiple prizes, decide up front whether every ticket enters every prize drawing or whether higher tiers unlock additional entries or bonus prizes, and state that plainly on the raffle page so entrants know exactly what they’re buying.

4. Promote your raffle

A raffle rarely sells out from a single announcement. Plan for two to three weeks of promotion across the channels where your supporters already pay attention: email, social posts, text reminders, and a dedicated raffle page. Space out at least three to four touchpoints — a launch announcement, a midpoint reminder highlighting how much has sold, and a final push in the last 48 hours before the draw.

On RallyUp’s online raffle platform, you can launch a branded raffle page that tracks ticket sales in real time, which gives you a live number to reference in reminder posts (“60% of tickets are gone”) instead of a flat repeat of the original announcement.

For the mistakes that most commonly stall a raffle mid-promotion, see 3 mistakes that make raffle fundraisers flop.

5. Run the draw with a documented, verifiable method

However you draw the winner — an online random-number tool, a livestreamed tumbler, or an in-person draw at an event — pick a method you can document and repeat exactly as you described it to entrants. If you announced the draw would happen live on a specific date, hold it on that date; if you promised a public or livestreamed draw, follow through rather than substituting a private one.

Some states require the draw method itself to meet specific standards (a witnessed draw, for example, or a method that gives every entry a genuinely equal chance). Check your state’s requirements as part of the legality research above, and keep a record of the method you used — a screen recording, timestamped screenshot, or witness sign-off — in case you need to show how the winner was selected.

6. Notify and announce the winner

Contact the winner privately first — by phone or email, using the contact information they provided at entry — before making any public announcement. Confirm they accept the prize, get their acceptance in writing, and only then post the announcement publicly with their permission.

Give the winner a clear, reasonable window to respond (many organizers use 48–72 hours) and decide in advance what happens if you can’t reach them in that window, since some states have specific rules about unclaimed-prize handling. Once confirmed, announce the winner across the same channels you used to promote the raffle so entrants see the raffle followed through.

7. Keep accurate raffle records

After the draw, keep a file with the raffle’s full paper trail: the ticket sales ledger, the entry list, documentation of the draw method and result, the winner’s written acceptance, and the prize’s value. Many states require charitable organizations to retain raffle records for a set number of years, and higher-value prizes may carry separate reporting obligations — for example, the IRS generally expects documentation once a prize’s fair market value crosses certain thresholds.

Treat recordkeeping as part of running the raffle, not an afterthought. Revisit raffle laws by state for your state’s specific retention and reporting requirements, and confirm with a tax professional or your state’s charitable-gaming authority if you’re unsure what applies to your prize values.

Running a raffle comes down to a short list of decisions made in the right order: confirm it’s allowed, choose a prize worth the ticket price, price and bundle tickets sensibly, promote for longer than feels necessary, draw the winner in a way you can document, notify them properly, and keep the records afterward. Get those seven steps right and the raffle tends to run itself.

Set up your raffle on RallyUp’s free online platform