No purchase necessary?

[KT84]

I was just wondering when these competitions on food and other groceries say no purchase necessary on them. For example a chocolate bar might have inside it whether you have won a car and on the out side it might say no purchase necessary but to know whether or not you have won something you would have to buy it. Or one that is puzzling at the moment is the adverts foe macdonalds, there running a monopoly competitions and on the bottom of the tv advert it says no purchase necessary, but obviously you have to buy fries or a drink to be able to enter.
ps sorry if i chose the wrong section guys i just wernt sure where to put it.

[CheekyChops]

Well you could find a winning wrapper or carton in the street and you would then claim the prize without having made a purchase?

Not that I go rooting through bins for empty McDonalds cartons...

[Buenchico]

If you have to buy a product to enter a draw, you're effectively buying a lottery ticket. It's illegal to sell lottery tickets without a licence, and licences aren't available for commercial lotteries. So the only way the companies who run these competitions can get round the law is to make it clear that you can enter the draw without buying the product (i.e. this proves that they're giving entries away, rather than selling them).

When companies first started to find ways around the law, they normally required that you had to send an entry, on plain paper, by post. These days, it's more common to permit free entries via the web. For example, you can enter the McDonald's Monopoly promotion, without making a purchase, here:
http://www.mcdonalds.co.uk/monopoly/

Chris

[johnny37]

They may even have entry forms in the shop, or at least information on how to obtain one. Sometimes it is quite onerous, eg your request for an entry has to be accompanied by a stamped addressed envelope.

[dannydingbat]

Chris is right, but not quite for the reason he gave. Any distibution of prizes purely by chance is a lottery, draw or raffle. Apart from the national lottery, only three are lawful and they can only be conducted for charitable purposes. Only one of them requires a permit (Society lottery). Theother two (Private Lottery and Small Lottery) do not need formal permission provided they are conducted within laid down restrictions. Any lottery which provides private or commercial gain for someone is unlawful. So to require someone to buy a product to obtain the chance of winning a prize will be an offence. That's why you can take part for free. This will change from 1st September when the new Gambling Act comes in and commercial draws and competitions can take place within certain limited constraints.

[KT84]

Thanks guys for all the reply's