Competitions and UK Law

Army Of Zero’s USP is that, besides being a card-and-dice game, it has a prize competition.  Naturally, I don’t want to get into trouble over this, so I’ve been reading up on the Gambling Act 2005, via a PDF downloaded from the Gambling Commission’s web site (Prize competitions and free draws).  Here’s what I ended up with.

[UPDATE: Obviously, we're talking UK law here.]

First of all, Army Of Zero wouldn’t be classified as a lottery or a free draw, because no element of the process of selecting a winner is based on chance.  Therefore, it is defined under the Act as a prize competition, and as such, it is free of statutory regulatory control under the Act.  According to the document:

[I]n prize competitions, success depends, at least in part, on the exercise of skill, judgement or knowledge by the participants.

In the case of whether the level of skill, judgement or knowledge is disputed, the Commission will be happy if the organiser can show that the competition was hard enough to deter a significant proportion of people from entering, or once they had entered, prevent a significant proportion from winning a prize.

This can be evidence based, or the organiser can argue that it is self-evident.  I’m prepared to argue that the competition is hard enough for this to be self evident.

I’m going to ask competition entrants to post in a card or other indication from the game box, so that I don’t get lots of entries from people who haven’t bought the game - primarily in case someone does something unpleasant like get the answer and post it online somewhere.  Does this make it a pay-to-enter competition, and if so, are the other legal ramifications?

Further research turned up this page, which says that:

Promoters of ‘pay to enter’ competitions will need to ensure that entrants are required to exercise an appropriate degree of skill.

So the conclusion is that, given that the Army Of Zero competiton is basically all skill, we should be OK.

One of the Gambling Act’s main aims, it seems, is to stop unscrupulous people from making money out of fleecing people: phone-in competitions where the question is ridiculously easy are among its main targets.  Although red tape is often criticised, I’ve usually found that regulations aren’t too stringent and that as long as you’re sensible and play fair by the public, you’ll usually find you’re inside the law anyway.  It’s only when you try to be a bit of a wide-boy that you start to rub up against potential legal issues.  Isn’t that the way it ought to be?