Real Score

Introduction

In an attempt to score and review competitions that are out there in a fair, and comparable way; I’ll be assigning each and every competition, giveaway, and prize draw a Real Score. This is to help you decide whether you should part with your money and give the competition or draw a go, or to help you find better alternatives!

The Real Score Framework

My (somewhat arbitrary) Real Score consists of ten parts that will be assessed and scored separately, which are divided into two key categories. Firstly, we will focus on five parts that will help us define whether the competition is first of all genuine or not – a Reality Check if you will. Then, we will perform a Competition Assessment consisting of five key parts of the competition, to define whether it’s worth taking part in, and to help you compare the competition to others out there.

I’ve tried to choose the ten parts in accordance to what I think is important for people who are looking into competitions, or alternative competitions.

Each part is worth one point (scored between 1-10 individually), meaning the maximum a competition can score is 10/10. And the worst a competition can score is 1/10.

Part I: Reality Check

1. Available Information: How transparent is the competition about who is running it, and how it has been set up. Is there a Limited Company clearly visible on the website and is it registered with the Companies House? Or is it a sole trader hiding in their parents’ basement trying to make easy money? Are you able to find out who is/are the person(s) running the competition easily? Can you find out other information relevant to the competition easily before entering?
2. Previous Winners: Are you able to check the previous winners easily? Are all the details visible? Is it only one person, or a person linked to the person(s) running the competition winning the prizes all the time? Does the competition publish prize collections, or any other proof increasing the likelihood that the prizes are genuinely given out?
3. Process: Is the competition transparent about their prize draw / judging process? Do they film live draws? Do the draws appear to be genuine? Several competitions websites in the UK are running on platforms that allow the winner’s ticket number to be manually put into the system, so it’s important to see that the winning ticket was chosen at random!
4. Legality: Is the competition or prize draw being run legally? Or are they running what is effectively defined as an illegal lottery by the Gambling Commission? (Note: Whilst I am not a lawyer… I believe the rules for running legal competitions and the guidelines by the Gambling Commission are clear enough. This means that everyone who is able to read (including myself), will be able to point out whether the rules are being adhered to or not!) In addition to the compliance with guidelines, is the competition doing anything else that might seem illegal?
5. Track Record: Has the competition been running for years, or just a couple of weeks? Is there enough proof that the competition has been running for a long time, awarding prizes consistently to real winners? Or is the competition likely to do a vanishing trick and disappear into the abyss with your money? (Like some competitions have done!)

Part II: Competition Assessment

1. Prizes: How good are the prizes? Are they worth playing for? Are they potentially life changing? Or, do they mostly consist of gadgets and junk nobody really needs?
2. Odds: What are the odds of winning? Is the competition transparent of the odds? How do these odds compare to other legitimate competitions?
3. Value: In relation to what you are able to win; is the cost of entering the competitions reasonable? How does this compare to other competitions? Are you able to win a life-changing amount of money for £1, or are you able to win a pair of used socks?
4. Philanthropy: Does the competition donate parts of the profit to good causes? Is there proof of this? Or do they take part in some other form of charitable causes? Or, are they just claiming to donate to good causes, whilst donating to something that isn’t really a good cause? How do the donated amounts compare to other competitions?
5. Bonus: The last point is a bonus point, which will be a awarded on fully subjective basis. As the competitions vary greatly from one to another, it seems fair that if the one competition is doing something really well (or something extremely poorly), they should be awarded (or punished) for it. This might be an online free entry method (that is genuinely free), or maybe the competition offers a fun and exciting user experience, or perhaps some parts of the competition already reviewed before are performed so well, that the competition deserves a second point in their Real Score.

Final Scores

Based on what the final score is, you can use the below chart to determine whether you should take part in the competition or not as a general guideline. Please remember: You are still parting with your money at your own risk, and just because a competition is or appears to be legitimate and perhaps with even great odds of winning; this doesn’t guarantee you will win anything!

• 9 to 10: Highly recommended! These competitions don’t just appear to be legitimate, but they are definitely worth playing!
• 8 or more: Recommended. These competitions appear to be genuine overall, and are mostly doing everything ‘correctly’, with a bit room for improvement in how the competitions are run.
• 7 or more: Neutral.These competitions have quite a lot of room for improvement, but could potentially be worth the punt.
• 6 or more: Not recommended. There is serious room for improvement. There are multiple other sticking points that are the cause of the low score.
• 5 or more: Avoid. Drastic room for improvement. If a competition barely gets a score of 5, we recommend avoiding such competitions.
• Less than 5: Avoid at all costs. If you are unable to get a score of 5 with the Real Score Framework, this means either that the competition is not genuine, or it’s not worth playing – or potentially both!

Notes

1. As you may have noticed, I’m not considering customer reviews as a part of the score, as these are either easily faked, or collected too easily. As an example, some competitions send an instant Trustpilot invitation to their customers when they buy tickets, and sometimes people have the tendency to leave positive reviews in the hopes of winning. This could mean that a new competition could potentially have hundreds or thousands of genuine (or fake) 5-star reviews, without even giving out a single prize! If you would like to learn more about why you shouldn’t trust reviews of competitions, I highly recommend you read my blog post where I go into great detail on this.
2. I will only link to competitions with a Real Score of, or higher than 8 on this website, to reduce the likelihood of someone actually parting their money with a competition that received a score of Not Recommended or less.
3. As the competition reviews and the investigation is performed by using the available information, this may not always be the best way of giving a full picture as it might be incomplete. Although, it will at least give an indication of the transparency of the competition! If a competition provides partial information that requires further proof; I’ll try to get in touch with the said competition and share the response in the review where applicable, whether the information request was successful or not! But for the most parts, the information provided and not provided will be enough to tell what’s going on.

Something not right in one of our articles? Let us know!

We appreciate that the information and the competitions may not always be up-to-date as there are hundreds of competitions in the UK, and occasionally the competitions and how they are run can and will change (for better or worse). Therefore, if you have anything you would like to share with us (as a person who has played the competition reviewed on our site, or as the person representing the competition), please do not hesitate to send us an email at investigation@realcompetitions.com and we’ll be happy to have a look at any new information provided, and update the articles where applicable!