How instant win games work
An instant win game tells you straight away whether you have won, rather than holding a prize back for a draw on a closing date. The prizes are usually allocated to specific ticket numbers or times before entry opens, and a random process decides which. Your odds are the number of instant prizes divided by the number of tickets. Grand Draws runs two instant win games: a free weekly one, with no purchase and no card, at /free-instant-wins, and a paid instant win board where numbers are bought in bundles. Our cash prize draws are separate and are each decided by a published draw on the closing date.
What an instant win actually is
An instant win is a prize you learn about immediately. Instead of waiting for a closing date and a draw, the result for your entry is settled the moment it is made: either a prize is revealed there and then, or it is not.
On a competition that carries both, the instant prizes sit on top of the main draw rather than replacing it. That is how a site can offer a handful of smaller prizes during the entry period and one larger prize at the end, with the same ticket doing both jobs.
The format goes by several names: instant wins, instant-win competitions, scratch reveals, hidden ticket prizes. The mechanics underneath are much the same.
How instant win prizes are allocated
There are only a few ways to decide who wins an instant prize, and the one a site uses tells you a lot about what you can check afterwards:
- Pre-assigned ticket numbers. Before entry opens, each instant prize is attached to a particular ticket number. Buy that number and the prize is yours. Because the allocation is set before anyone enters, it can be committed to in advance and published afterwards, which makes it the most checkable of the four.
- Pre-assigned times. The prize goes to the first entry made after a set moment. Common on free-to-enter promotions, and much harder for an entrant to verify.
- Decided at the moment of entry. A random value is generated when you enter and compared with a stated probability. Simple to run, but nothing about it can be checked from outside unless the operator publishes its method.
- A held-back pool with no set positions. A number of prizes is released across the entry period on a schedule the operator keeps to itself. The least transparent of the four, and the one to ask most questions about.
Are instant win games random?
A well-run one is, but "random" covers two different things. The randomness itself usually comes from a deterministic random bit generator: an algorithm, of the kind specified in the US National Institute of Standards and Technology recommendation SP 800-90A, that turns a secret starting value into unpredictable output. That is the right tool for the job.
The question an entrant actually cares about is the second one: can you tell afterwards that the allocation was not changed? Randomness you cannot inspect is still randomness, but you are taking it on trust. An allocation decided before entry opens and published with a commitment, in the way our main draws are, is the version you can recheck yourself.
The advertising rules point the same way. The CAP Code requires prize draws to award prizes in accordance with the laws of chance, and allows a computer process that produces verifiably random results in place of an independent person. It also has a rule aimed squarely at this format: participants in instant-win promotions must get their winnings at once, or know immediately what they have won and how to claim, without delay, cost or administrative barriers. The Government’s voluntary code for prize draw operators uses similar language about verifiably random and auditable results.
Instant win odds, explained
The arithmetic is the same shape as any other competition, with a different denominator. If 50 instant prizes are spread across 10,000 tickets, one ticket has a 50 in 10,000 chance of hitting one, which is 1 in 200.
Two things move that figure while a competition runs: prizes already won come out of the pool, and tickets already sold come out of the total. So an instant-win pool is worth reading as two numbers rather than one, how many prizes are left and how many tickets are left, and a site publishing only the first is telling you half of it.
Instant prizes are usually small next to the headline prize, and that is the trade: a better chance of a little, alongside a long shot at a lot. For main-draw odds, our calculator at /odds-calculator does the same sum for any ticket count.
Instant win vs the main draw
Five differences worth holding in your head:
- Timing. An instant win is settled when you enter. A main draw is settled on the closing date.
- Prize size. Instant prizes are typically smaller and more numerous. A main draw usually carries one larger prize.
- Odds. Instant-win odds are prizes remaining over tickets remaining, so they move as the competition sells. Main-draw odds are your tickets over the published ticket cap, which you can work out before you buy.
- What you can check. A main draw can be published and recomputed after the event. An instant win can only be rechecked if the allocation was committed to before entry opened.
- They are not alternatives. On a competition carrying both, the same ticket can hit an instant prize and still go into the main draw.
Where Grand Draws stands on instant wins
We run one, and only one: a free weekly instant win game, with no purchase and no card. Our paid cash competitions are still decided by a main draw on the closing date and none of them carries an instant win. The game, its full prize ladder and its published odds are at /free-instant-wins.
Everything else is decided by a main draw, run automatically at 9pm on the closing date and not streamed. Our free £500 monthly draw takes entries from 30 October until 8pm on Monday 30 November 2026, with one entry per person, and paid competitions have been open since 30 October 2026. Winners are selected at random from all qualifying entries, in accordance with the laws of chance, using a verifiable random draw.
It runs the only way we were willing to run one, which is the standard the rest of this guide asks you to hold any site to: the whole allocation is committed to before entry opens, so the result is settled before the reveal is drawn and the reveal itself decides nothing. That is also why the free game came first rather than a paid one. Nobody has paid anything to play it, so nobody would have been out of pocket if we had got the format wrong.
Not the same thing as our reward wheels
Worth separating, because a wheel also gives you an answer on the spot. Wheel spins belong to our free rewards programme and are unlocked with XP, not bought: buying tickets earns no XP and no wheel spins. Each wheel publishes its real odds on our rewards page.
A wheel spin is not a paid instant-win game, and it is not an entry into a competition. We would rather draw that line clearly than let the two blur together.
Please note.General information about the Gambling Act 2005, which applies in England, Wales and Scotland (Northern Ireland has separate legislation). It is not legal advice.
Sources
- CAP Code, section 8: promotional marketing (ASA)
- DCMS: Voluntary Code of Good Practice for Prize Draw Operators (gov.uk)
- NIST SP 800-90A Rev. 1: Recommendation for Random Number Generation Using Deterministic Random Bit Generators
- Gambling Commission: Free draws and prize competitions
Checked against these sources on .
Common questions
Can I play an instant win game on Grand Draws?
Two. A free weekly instant win game, no purchase and no card, at /free-instant-wins; and a paid instant win board. On both, prizes are attached to entry numbers before the game opens, so the result is settled before the reveal and the placement can be checked afterwards. Our cash prize draws are separate and are decided by a main draw at 9pm on their closing date.
How are instant win prizes allocated?
Most often to particular ticket numbers, decided before entry opens, so buying that number wins the prize. Others go to the first entry after a set time, or are settled by a random value generated at the moment of entry. Only an allocation decided and committed to in advance can be rechecked by an entrant afterwards.
Are instant win games random?
A well-run one is, usually using a standards-based random generator of the kind NIST describes in SP 800-90A. The more useful question is whether you can verify it, because randomness you cannot inspect still has to be taken on trust. That is why a commitment published before entry opens matters.
Are instant win odds better than the main draw?
Different rather than better. Instant prizes are smaller and more numerous, so hitting one is likelier than winning a headline prize, and the odds shift as prizes are won and tickets sell. A capped main draw gives you a worst case you can work out before you pay.
Is an instant win game gambling?
It depends on how it is built, not what it is called. Paying to enter where prizes are allocated wholly by chance is a lottery under the Gambling Act 2005. An instant-win element on a paid competition has to sit behind the same safeguards as the main draw: a genuine skill test, a free entry route of equal standing, or both.