In Australia, a giveaway that picks its winner by chance to promote a business is a trade promotion lottery, and the rules depend on where your entrants live: New South Wales, South Australia, the ACT and the Northern Territory each require a permit, authority or licence once the total prize value passes the threshold their regulator publishes, while Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania issue no permits but some of them set conditions you must follow. A genuine game of skill is not a lottery, and the Australian Consumer Law applies to every giveaway either way. The table below lists each state's trigger with its official page, followed by a terms and conditions checklist.
Chance or skill: the first question
State gaming laws regulate lotteries, so the first thing to settle is how your winner is chosen. A random draw from comments, a spin of a name wheel or picking the hundredth entrant all involve chance, and so the giveaway is a trade promotion lottery when it promotes your content, your products or a brand you work with.
Adding a small task does not change that. South Australia's trade promotions page says a competition is not a lottery when skill determines the winners, but that one where people enter by completing a minor test of skill, such as answering a simple question, is still a trade promotion if the winner is drawn. The ACT Gambling and Racing Commission describes a trade promotion lottery as one where winners are decided by any means including chance or a mix of chance and skill, and Victoria's regulator says its rules apply even when the event includes skill-based activities.
A true skill contest therefore needs a winner chosen on merit against criteria you publish in advance, such as the best caption judged on originality and relevance by named judges. If you would be comfortable explaining to an entrant why their entry lost, you are probably running a skill contest. If the honest answer is “their name did not come up”, you are running a lottery and the table below applies.
State-by-state permit triggers
Each row reflects the regulator's own page as read on 1 October 2026. Thresholds refer to the total value of all prizes in the promotion, not each prize, and an online giveaway open to the whole country has to satisfy every state its entrants live in. NSW says so directly: an authority is needed for a promotion open to NSW residents even if the operator lives outside NSW.
| Place | When a permit is needed | Points that matter online | Official source |
|---|---|---|---|
| New South Wales | An authority is required when the total prize value of a single trade promotion exceeds $10,000 | With an authority, rules go to NSW Fair Trading at least 10 working days before the start and every ad shows the authority number | NSW Government: trade promotions |
| South Australia | A major trade promotion licence is needed when drawn prizes total $5,001 or more; minor promotions of $5,000 or under need none, and instant-ticket promotions always do | A promotion cannot run longer than 12 months, absent winners must be told in writing within seven days, and minor promotions publish their winners for at least seven days | SA.GOV.AU: trade promotions |
| Australian Capital Territory | Approval is generally needed before advertising or running one in the ACT; no permit is needed when total prizes do not exceed $3,000, subject to exempt lottery conditions | Read the Commission's exempt lottery conditions sheet before launching a smaller giveaway | ACT Gambling and Racing Commission |
| Northern Territory | No permit for a minor trade lottery with prizes worth $5,000 or less; larger ones need a permit | Interstate businesses holding a permit elsewhere can run in the NT without a local one; records are kept for at least two years | NT.GOV.AU: trade lotteries |
| Victoria | No permit, but conditions under the Gambling Regulation Act 2003 apply | Get written consent from the business being promoted, keep records for three years and hand over prizes within 28 days of the draw | VGCCC: conducting trade promotion lotteries |
| Queensland | No licence for category 4 promotional games, the free-entry draws used to promote goods or services | Follow the state's guide to category 4 promotional games, linked from the same page | Business Queensland: competitions and games |
| Western Australia | No permit if the prescribed conditions are met | For promotions run through electronic media, lodge the terms with the Commission before starting; draw within one month of closing; keep records for 12 months | WA Government: trade promotion lottery |
| Tasmania | No permit; the Gaming Control Act 1993 only regulates games where players pay, and purchase-linked trade promotions are permitted | Requiring a purchase, an event ticket or a membership fee counts as a cost to play | Treasury and Finance Tasmania: exempt games |
The Western Australian point is easy to miss. Its prescribed conditions say that when a lottery is run through audio, visual or other electronic media, a copy of the terms must be lodged with the Gaming and Wagering Commission before the lottery starts, and that once it has started the terms cannot be amended, nor the promotion cancelled, without the Commission's written approval. A giveaway posted to social media is electronic media, so treat the lodgement as part of your launch checklist if West Australians can enter.
Free entry, purchases and subscriber-only draws
Every regime above assumes entry is free in the sense of no entry fee. NSW allows entry by buying goods or services at their normal retail price but not an extra charge, South Australia lets participants be required to buy the promoted goods, and Victoria caps the expense of each entry, such as an SMS, at $1 including GST. Tasmania goes further and treats any requirement to pay to take part, including a membership fee, as a cost to play.
For creators, that makes subscriber-only giveaways the case to think hardest about. A draw open only to people paying for a channel membership or subscription looks like a paid entry rather than a free one, so either add a free way in or get advice before you announce it. A prize decided by chance after a tip is a separate problem covered in the guide to tip games and lottery risk, and the platform's own giveaway terms are covered in the Instagram giveaway rules template.
Australian Consumer Law: honesty about the prize
Permits are only half of it. The ACCC's page on cash back offers, gifts and prizes says it is illegal for a business to offer a gift or prize to promote its goods or services if it does not intend to provide it, fails to provide it as offered, or does not provide it within the stated time or, where none is stated, within a reasonable time. The same page says it is illegal to tell people they will win a prize when all they actually get is a chance of winning, and to offer a free gift without saying they must pay for its delivery.
Three habits follow. Describe the prize exactly as it will arrive, using its retail value, which South Australia requires for the advertised value. Say who pays for delivery. And never word a post as though entering means winning. When a brand supplies the prize, the post is also advertising, so the labelling rules in the Australian influencer disclosure guide apply on top of everything here. If the prize or the sponsor involves shares, crypto or an investing app, read the ASIC finfluencer rules before you agree to the deal.
Prizes the states rule out
Several regulators list prizes a trade promotion cannot offer. The lists overlap but are not identical, so check each state you open entry to.
- NSW prohibits firearms and other prohibited weapons, tobacco, smoking or vaping products, cosmetic surgery and similar procedures, and liquor above set volume limits.
- South Australia excludes tobacco, firearms and ammunition, dangerous articles, cosmetic procedures aimed at improving appearance, goods that are illegal to sell in the state, and other lotteries.
- Western Australia's conditions rule out cosmetic surgical or medical procedures as prizes.
- The Northern Territory bars liquor as a principal prize, rules out firearms, weapons, explosives and tobacco, and says you must not award a prize to a person under 18, a condition it says includes liquor and other goods or services restricted to adults.
Age matters beyond the NT. South Australia voids a ticket held by someone under the legal age to receive the prize or buy the promoted product, so state an age limit in your terms whenever the prize or the sponsor's product is age-restricted.
Terms and conditions checklist
Publish the terms before entries open and link to them from every post about the giveaway. NSW requires the rules to be clearly advertised, or the ad to say where they can be found, and Western Australia requires electronic promotions to direct people to the terms. Work through each item and tick it off.
- Promoter details: the name of whoever runs the promotion, with an ABN if you have one, and the brand behind it if a brand supplies the prize.
- Written consent from the business being promoted, which Victoria requires and NSW expects whenever you run it on a business's behalf.
- Eligibility: which states and territories are included, the minimum age, and exclusions for you, your team and anyone involved in picking the winner.
- The promotional period with exact opening and closing times and the time zone, such as AEST or AEDT.
- How to enter, the limit on entries per person, and a statement that no entry fee applies.
- How the winner is decided: draw date, time and method for a lottery, or the published judging criteria and judges for a skill contest.
- The prize: an exact description, its retail value, who pays for delivery, and when it will be provided.
- Permit, authority or licence numbers for every state that requires one, shown in the terms and in your posts.
- How and when winners are notified, the claim period, and what happens to an unclaimed prize, including whether a redraw is allowed.
- Where winners will be published, if a state you include requires it.
- A privacy statement saying what entrant information you collect and every purpose you will use it for; Victoria bars using entrants' details for anything not stated in the conditions of entry.
- Record retention: keep entries, the draw record and proof of delivery for the longest period any included state demands, which in this table is Victoria's three years.
Store the terms, permits and draw evidence with the deal paperwork for that brand, for example in your brand deal tracker, so that you can answer a regulator or an unhappy entrant months later.
Limitations of this guide
This is general information, not legal advice. The table summarises regulator web pages, which are themselves summaries of state legislation; the conditions in the Acts and regulations are longer and can contain detail not covered here, such as fees, scrutineer rules for large draws and the treatment of instant-win promotions.
Thresholds and conditions change, and regulators update their pages without notice, so confirm every row on the day you plan a giveaway. For a promotion with a high total prize value, entry linked to a purchase, entrants in several states, or a sponsor in a regulated industry, ask a lawyer who handles trade promotions to review the terms before launch.