Every December, somebody is sent to the shops on the afternoon of the raffle with £80 of petty cash and a brief of "get some nice bits". They come back with a Quality Street tin, two bottles of Prosecco and a scented candle, and the raffle is fine, and nobody remembers it. And no shade, to be honest. It's a tricky brief and a much-more-boring-errand than it sounds when you accept the mantle.
This guide covers how many prizes you actually need, what to spend at each level, which prizes shift tickets and which sit on the table until the end, the licensing question, and what to do when the winner is 200 miles away.
Quick answer: Aim for roughly one prize per eight people, built as a ladder: a small number of headline prizes, a middle tier that does the heavy lifting, and enough small prizes that most people go home with something. Spend the budget on the middle tier, not the top one. And check before you sell tickets in advance, because that's the point where a workplace raffle can tip into needing a licence.
How many Christmas raffle prizes do you need?
Roughly one prize per eight people. For a team of 40, that's five prizes. For 200, about 25.
Go much thinner and the draw is over in ninety seconds and most people have no stake in it. Go much thicker and it stops feeling like winning.
The other number that matters is the proportion of people who go home with something. If you can get that above about a third, the room stays interested to the end. That's an argument for more small prizes rather than one grand one.
The prize ladder
Rather than a pile of yawn-inducingly similar items, build three tiers.
The headline (1 prize, or 2 if you're over 100 people). This is the one that gets mentioned in the all-hands and sells tickets. £75 to £150 is plenty. It doesn't need to be extravagant - it needs to be desirable and easy to describe in one line.
The middle (about 30% of your prizes). £20 to £40 each. This is where your budget should actually go, and it's the tier most people get wrong by underfunding it. Middle prizes are what people genuinely hope for, because the headline feels unlikely and the small prizes feel like a consolation.
The small tier (the rest). £5 to £15. Volume matters more than individual value. This is how you get the third of the room going home with something.
A worked example for 80 people, 10 prizes, £400:
- 1 headline at £120
- 3 middle prizes at £45 each (£135)
- 6 small prizes at about £24 each (£145)
Notice the small tier costs more in total than the headline. That's deliberate and it's the opposite of how most office raffles are bought.
What actually shifts tickets
Some prizes move and some don't, fairly predictably.
Things that move:
- An extra half-day or day off, if your business can offer it. Costs little, wins every time, and it's the single most requested raffle prize we hear about
- Anything experiential - a meal out, a spa slot, tickets to something
- Prizes people would like but wouldn't buy themselves. The nice-but-frivolous end
- Something for the household rather than the individual, which broadens who cares
- Choice. A prize where the winner picks is worth more to the room than a prize of the same value that has been chosen for them, because everyone in the room can imagine wanting it
Things that sit on the table:
- Branded company merchandise. Nobody has ever wanted to win a branded mug, soz
- Anything sized, fitted or highly personal. Half the room is immediately out
- Very large physical items, which the winner then has to get home on the train
- Alcohol as the only prize category. Increasingly a problem rather than a default, and it excludes people who don't drink for any number of reasons
- Novelty items bought because they were funny in the shop
The winner who isn't in the room
This is where the modern office raffle ends up being a massive dud, and it's worth planning for rather than improvising.
If your team is hybrid, multi-site, or running shifts over December, a table of physical prizes only works for the people standing next to the table. Everyone else either can't enter or wins something they then have to arrange to collect.
Three fixes, in order of how well they work:
- Make some of the prizes digital. A gift card or a Huggg gift is a link. The winner gets it in the room or two hundred miles away, identically, and there's nothing to post. This is the one structural fix - everything else is a workaround
- Run the draw so remote people can watch. A raffle nobody can see is just an email telling them they lost
- Let physical winners swap. If the winner in Leeds has won a hamper that lives in the Bristol office, give them the option to take something equivalent instead
The reason a link works here isn't that it's a better gift. It's that it removes the address problem entirely, which is the whole reason remote colleagues get left out of raffles. Sending to a team without collecting addresses goes into the practical side.
Is a workplace Christmas raffle legal?
Usually yes, but this is the part worth reading properly rather than assuming.
Under the Gambling Act 2005 there are exempt lottery categories that most office raffles fall into, including work lotteries and incidental lotteries run at an event. The conditions are specific: broadly, the raffle must not be run for profit, proceeds need to go to prizes and costs or to a named good cause, and promotion is limited to the workplace or the event itself.
Where offices get caught out is selling tickets in advance, across multiple sites, or in a way that raises money beyond covering the prizes. That can move it outside the exemption.
None of this is legal advice and the detail matters more than a blog post can carry. Check the current guidance on the Gambling Commission website, or ask your finance or legal team, before you sell a ticket. If you're raising money for charity, ask the charity too - most have done this before and will tell you exactly how to run it.
Where to get the prizes
- One supplier, mixed bag. Easiest for admin, and you get one invoice rather than eleven receipts from a Tuesday afternoon
- Ask your suppliers. Companies you already spend money with will often donate a prize, particularly if it's going to a charity draw. This is free and almost nobody asks
- Local businesses. A gift card for the good coffee place near the office lands better than something generic, and it costs less
- Digital gifts for anything that needs to reach people off-site. Huggg covers over 700 brands, so one prize can cover wildly different tastes without you having to guess
A raffle isn't recognition
Worth saying plainly, because the two get muddled every December.
In the Huggg Christmas Gift Index, a survey of 500 UK working adults fielded in August 2026, a party or event was the most common thing employers did at Christmas, at 33%. It was also the worst performing on whether people felt genuinely valued - 29% felt valued, while 45% said it felt generic.
A raffle sits inside that. It's a good hour. It isn't a thank-you, because a thank-you can't be won by someone else.
So run the raffle, make it fun, spend the budget on the middle tier. Just don't let it be the only thing the business does, and don't let the person who drew a blank ticket be someone who also got nothing else this year. The same report found 31% of UK workers get nothing from their employer at Christmas at all.
If you're sorting the wider Christmas plan as well as the raffle, our Christmas planning guide covers the timings, and bringing the office Christmas party to everyone covers the hybrid version of the same problem.
FAQs
How many prizes should an office Christmas raffle have?
About one prize per eight people, so five prizes for a team of 40 and around 25 for a team of 200. Aim for roughly a third of the room going home with something, which usually means more small prizes and fewer headline ones.
How much should you spend on Christmas raffle prizes?
A workable split is one headline prize at £75 to £150, a middle tier at £20 to £40 each making up around 30% of the prizes, and the rest at £5 to £15. Put more of the total budget into the middle tier than the headline - that's the tier people actually hope to win.
Do you need a licence for a work Christmas raffle?
Most workplace raffles fall under an exempt lottery category in the Gambling Act 2005, such as a work lottery or an incidental lottery at an event, provided they aren't run for profit and promotion stays within the workplace. Selling tickets in advance or across multiple sites can move a raffle outside the exemption. Check current Gambling Commission guidance before selling tickets.
What makes a good Christmas raffle prize for work?
Things people would like but wouldn't buy themselves, experiences rather than objects, and anything that lets the winner choose. Avoid branded merchandise, sized or highly personal items, and large physical prizes that the winner has to carry home. For hybrid or multi-site teams, a digital prize such as a Huggg gift removes the collection problem entirely.
Huggg is used by over 2,000 UK businesses to send gifts people choose themselves, with no sign-up for recipients and nothing to post. Handy for the raffle winner who works in a different city. Our festive range opens on 3 November.
If you're planning the wider Christmas push as well as the raffle, talk to us.
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