Instant wins are the single biggest revenue lever on a competition site. They turn each ticket purchase into a mini-event (“did I win something instantly?”) and drive bulk buying patterns that pure prize-draw competitions don’t.

How they work mechanically

1. When you set Instant-win % on a competition (say 5%), the platform generates random winning ticket numbers in advance — exactly 5% of max_tickets, rounded.
2. Each generated winning number is associated with a prize: a fixed amount (£10, £25, £100, a physical item, site credit, free entries).
3. When a customer purchases tickets, the system checks each assigned ticket number against the pre-seeded winning list. Any match awards the prize immediately, before the headline draw even happens.
4. The customer sees their wins revealed via your competition type: a generic toast, a Scratch Card animation, the Sky Run game, etc.

Adding prize tiers

From the competition edit page, scroll to Prizes and click Add prize. Each tier needs:

• Title — what the customer sees, e.g. “£25 site credit”
• Prize type — cash, credit, physical, free_entry
• Value (pence) — for cash and credit; how much to credit them
• Count — how many of this tier to seed. Sum of counts across all tiers must equal Instant-win % × max_tickets.

A worked example

Competition with max_tickets = 1000 at £2.99 per ticket, instant_win_percentage = 8.

• Total revenue if sold out: £2,990
• Instant-win count: 80 tickets (8% of 1000)
• Suggested prize ladder:
  • 50× £1 site credit (the “tease”, low-value)
  • 20× £5 site credit
  • 7× £25 cash
  • 2× £100 cash
  • 1× £250 cash
• Total instant-win payout: £50 + £100 + £175 + £200 + £250 = £775 (26% of gross). Leaves ~74% for headline prize, ad spend, fulfilment, profit.

This ratio is typical for free-entry-route operators. Adjust based on your sell-through and headline prize value.

How customers see wins

• On checkout success, the system tells them they’ve won instant prizes (with confetti, in our default theme).
• For scratch_reveal / flappy_reveal competitions, the win is revealed only after they complete the game mode (or skip with the X button).
• Won credit is added to their credit_transactions balance immediately. Won cash is queued for manual fulfilment from the admin Payouts tab. Won physical prizes show in their order detail with shipping prompts.

Auditability

The winning ticket numbers are written to the prizes table at competition creation and never modified — they’re immutable from that point. The winners table records who won which prize and when. Together these form an audit trail you can show regulators, customers, or your accountant.

Related: Managing Instant Winners.