What makes a prize draw compliant?
A prize draw is compliant when it plays fair and can prove it: the terms and the prize are published before entries open, the winner is chosen by a genuinely random and recorded method, and any permit the jurisdiction requires is held before the draw starts. The specific rules vary by where you run it, but those four habits, clear terms, a fixed prize, a fair draw and good records, carry most of the load everywhere. Get those right and the rest is mostly following through.
Do you need a permit to run a prize draw in Australia?
Sometimes, and it depends on the state and the size of the prize pool. There is no single national permit, so a campaign that runs across the country is really meeting several sets of rules at once. In New South Wales a trade promotion authority is required once the total prize pool is above $10,000 (under the Community Gaming Act 2018), the ACT requires a permit from $3,001, and South Australia from $5,001 (and for any printed scratch-and-win, whatever the value). Check the threshold in every state you promote in and apply before the draw opens, because these approvals cannot be granted after the fact.
How should the winner be drawn so it is fair and verifiable?
Use a random method you can reproduce on paper afterwards. For a draw at a set closing date, that means a documented random selection, a certified random number generator or a supervised manual draw, with the entrants, the date and the result all recorded. For an instant win format, the winning moments are set by a certified RNG before play opens, so every outcome is fixed in advance and auditable. The test either way is simple: if an entrant or a regulator asks how the winner was picked, you can show them exactly.
What records do you need to keep?
Enough to reconstruct the whole promotion if someone asks. In practice that is the published terms and prize details, the full list of entries, the draw method and its result, how winners were notified and how any unclaimed prizes were handled, plus the permits or authorities you held. Keep them for the period your state specifies after the promotion closes. Audit-ready records are not red tape; they are what lets you show the draw was run properly long after it is over.
Where does the platform fit in?
The platform is what turns compliance from a one-off scramble into something repeatable. Sota builds the platform and infrastructure brands run their promotions on, with certified RNG, auditable draws and audit-ready records built in, and consults closely on the design, while the brand runs the promotion, owns the prizes and the winners, and owns all of its first-party data. It is proven in Australia and built to run globally, so the same foundation works wherever a promotion runs, not just under one state's rules. That leaves the brand free to focus on giving customers something genuinely worth taking part in.