Introduction
WinWink is a prize draw that focuses on extremely heavily on giving out Pokémon cards, which on their own could be valuable (but realistically add just a second layer of gambling to the existing one) and other ‘gamer niché’ products such as gadgets and tech.
Key Information
- URL: winwink.co.uk
- Organiser: WINWINK LTD
- Type: Competitions & Prize Draws
- Prizes: Cash, Other Prizes
Review Summary
WinWink does have some potential to be a competition that can be recommended, but due to the issues with transparency, the draw history, and weird things like claims about being a skill-based game even though there is not a single ‘skill element’ at play… It’s clear that they’ve just copied the format from other competition websites without knowing the legalities.
Speaking of legalities and weird things; it’s also very strange that if you enter WinWink your payment gets taken by a cannabis company.
To me it looks like that they are a decent competition overall, but could do with a fair bit of help with their process, compliance and also just keeping their website and all the information up-to-date.
While WinWink is (just barely) a slightly better version of Gaming Giveaways, I can currently only score them 4.3 out of 10 in our Real Score, making them the third lowest scoring competition on this website (so far).
If you really would like to score some Pokémon cards – just go buy them please. Although, their main draws might be worth entering if they’re undersold if you’re interested in winning a few grand!
If you wish to learn more about how I’ve calculated the Real Score for WinWink, please see the below sections!
Real Score
You are able to find basic information on the website easily, such as that the competition is operated by WINWINK LTD, a company based in Trowbridge.
However, under “How it works” the first link is a link to a TrustPilot page… Which doesn’t exactly have much to do with “How it works” as such.
Let’s have a look at the TrustPilot profile then! There are quite a few negative and recent reviews like this:
… But coming back to the actual “How it works” – the first thing they address in their FAQ is whether the company is a scam or not. Ok, a bit weird. Still not exactly “How it works” – but whatever!
And one thing stood out instantly… They say they are a “skill based competition” – but I’ve entered a couple of their draws as a test and there was no “skill” required?? Not sure what they are on about! (Maybe they used to ask a simple question before you could buy a ticket? And have then since removed these so the website is just out of date)
Even though the “How it works” page isn’t really filled with information about how it works; I found the following bit of information that might be useful for some:
That’s right, only one entrant per household is allowed. So, if you want to enter – make sure nobody else does in your household or they will disqualify “ALL ENTRIES” with no refunds from the same address. Seems a bit harsh? Also, as that was hidden in the terms page and not clear at all, it wasn’t really ‘available’ as such.
There are a bunch of previous winners or names on their website available, and a mix of pictures that are for promotional purposes mostly of the winners… But as the page is literally just basic text and you can’t see all the ticket numbers, entries, or any proof of the auto draws being done properly… I’m not 100% sold.
If you scroll down to the page where they show the winners and click on the “Show all previous results”… You get off the website and end up on their Facebook page???? It doesn’t look like that you can check any of the (auto draw) winners’ names more than a month in the past.
I was just quickly going to cross-reference some of the live draw winners by comparing the results from the live draw and what’s on the winner’s page but… It looks like the main live draws are only on Facebook, and these winners are not updated on the website at all either.
So, who knows! There definitely appears to be some winners, especially for the live draws, but it’s very hard to verify what’s going on with the large number of auto draws and very little available information.
The live draws that are performed twice a week, appear to be done in a very similar and nice format than a lot of the other competitions. First the presenter pulls up all the ticket numbers and you can see the names, and then uses Google’s own random number generator to pull the winning number.
It has to be pointed out; that it wouldn’t be overly complicated to replicate the simple-looking random number generator. Especially, as the view is heavily cropped, and then have this pull up specific numbers… So, while it looks like it’s all above board – there’s still room for improvement as you can’t tell that they’re actually on the legitimate random number generator! This is similar to the view you get with Gaming Giveaways‘ live draws as well.
However, I’m not sure how the auto draws are being performed. Their FAQ section does explain how they do it with a slightly condescending explanation of a specific somewhat acceptable pseudo-RNG, but much like with many other competitions there’s very little transparency with how the numbers were exactly being generated. It’s all well and good to say that something is random – but how can it be verified?
Despite the mention to being a “skill based game” on their FAQ section, WinWink operates as a free draw with a paid entry. This means that you should be able to enter the competition for free, in a way that is no less convenient than purchasing a paid ticket. But also, the free entry should not be more expensive either. Which means that if there are draws that cost less than a stamp (which there are), the competition is not adhering to the Gambling Commission’s guidelines.
At least the “postal entry” is very visible and on the same level. Which is how it should be:
However, their terms for the free postal entries aren’t the best ones. Much like with Gaming Giveaways and several other competitions, they say that your entries won’t be acknowledged. You can guess where the entries will end up if the competitions don’t even need to acknowledge this.
But there’s also another part that I find annoying… Which is the fact that if they sell out (which might happen often with very small amount of tickets) – your entry won’t count.
For contrast, here are 7days Performance’s free postal entry rules:
- You can get more than one entry in their draws (depending on value of the prize – which is in line with the Gambling Commissions guidelines about the free entry method not being more expensive than the paid one)
- They will acknowledge your entry
- You are able to do multiple entries with separate post cards
- If you miss out on the closing date (note, not if they sell out) – and they receive your entry within 72 hour of closing you’ll get credit to play their other games!
That’s a lot more like it! Although, I still don’t recommend entering any competition with the free postal entry method as I believe it to be a waste of time.
WinWink has been around since 2020 (as a limited company at least), so they do have some kind of a track record. While matching the winner’s pictures with exact draws is extremely hard, there seems to be a decent number of social proof of the draws being done, and images of people posing with their prizes.
If you’ve read any of my other reviews – you’ll know by now that I’m not a big fan of misleading prize pools and pots. As an example, the prize in the middle just has the number £50,000 – and no mention that if it’s a grand prize, prize pot, or something else.
If you click into the competition… You’ll find that the grand prize is £1,000’s worth of Pokémon cards:
But aside this point, they do have some good prizes in addition to some of the more low-value stuff!
At the time of writing this review – the “£100,000 prize pool” competition has:
- 2 x £5,000 cash prizes
- 1 x Rolex worth £9,000
- 10 x £1,000 cash
- 10 x £5,000 cash
- And a ton of smaller tech / gadget / collectible prizes
If we compare this to Gaming Giveaways (as the competition with a very similar offering), the prizes of WinWink are a lot better.
However, while a £5,000 cash prize could and would be nice for most of us – it’s not as good as some of the bigger prizes or cash alternatives like 7days Performance or BOTB have.
Overall odds are decent at the time of writing this competition. You are able to win small (but very low value prices), and the main competitions still have a fairly limited amount of tickets over all.
To be able to win £5,000 in tax free cash for £1.69 is not as good as some other competitions, but it’s still a decent amount of money! (And ‘almost potentially life-changing‘ for some)
WinWink appears to ‘adopt animals’ through WWF for the main prize winners, but how this is exactly done isn’t well elaborated.
If you go to WWF’s website, you can see that you are able to donate and ‘adopt’ an animal either on monthly basis, or as a one-off. If you are doing a one-off donation, the minimum for this is £36. If you do a monthly amount, this is as little as £3. Also, as you are able to cancel the monthly donation, when would this get done? After first month? After a year? (I highly doubt they’re paying an ongoing and ever-increasing monetary amount for adopted animals)
The probable scenario is that they would either do the £36 one off – or if being very cheeky and cheap for maximum ‘green-washing’ and promotional ROI, they might just do a £3 as one off and then cancel the donation.
Finally, as the amount of ‘adopted animals’ hasn’t changed in the last 5 months (at the time of writing this), it’s safe to guess that they’ve stopped doing this. As you’d think that updating a single number would be easy enough to do (even if completely arbitrary and wouldn’t require any proof of actually having adopted any animals)
But then again, the prizes won counter hasn’t been updated either for 5 months so… Might be just out of date. Who knows. But then again, there is no proof of any of these animals being adopted visible on the website, and there are no mentions in the terms and conditions so this isn’t defined either…
The most likely scenario is that they’ve come up with a promotional ‘feel-good’ donation idea, that sounds great but doesn’t require any oversight, proof, or even actual donations. At least they’re saying that they are doing something, but is this better than not doing anything at all for the greater good if there is no proof of this?
For the bonus point I’d like to focus on how they take payments, and that there’s something very weird going on. While I can only speculate, I can make a well-educated guess or two having dealt with high-risk online payment processors in the past professionally.
I thought I’d play a couple of tickets to see how the competition works myself… First, I noticed that they’re using Viva Wallet. This is a known high-risk payment processor, commonly used by companies that sell CBD products in the UK, and other companies that may struggle to get a business bank account from more legitimate high-street banks. Which in its own is fair enough, I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with Viva, and I’ve used them before myself.
However, once the payment goes through – this is where it gets a bit weird. The payment wasn’t actually processed by WinWink – but a CBD company called ZenBears!?
This is incredibly strange, and my best guess would be that they know someone from ZenBears, and they’ve just plugged this website in onto the Viva Wallet account owned by the other company. OR there is an affiliation between the two companies that isn’t clear. However, from looking at the Companies House listings of WINWINK LTD and ZenBears which is operated by INNOVATIVE WELLNESS BRANDS LTD according to their website – there doesn’t appear to be a clear connection.
Wonder how that works for accounting if a cannabis company takes your money first?
One thing that is clear, the screenshot I took of the website has “PayPal” listed in the payment methods on the front page (the featured image of this review), but 5 months later this has vanished of the accepted payment methods. Maybe WinWink was using another payment provider but got kicked off, or maybe they’ve just stopped accepting PayPal because of their frees (and/or the Honey scandal).
While this is at least a bit alarming, and while this does not necessarily have a real negative effect on anything… I think anyone would agree that it’s really weird to have your money taken by a CBD company that doesn’t have anything to do with the competition you’ve entered. (Or if they are affiliated, that’s not made clear in the slightest)
Notes
I have to say that the reason why I ‘fast-tracked’ this review, was because I kept seeing their ads on daily basis on social media… So it’s safe to say they’re one of these competitions that probably has a decent amount of ad spend available – so it was time to have a look into them!
As far as what I was expecting… And what I found out? Unfortunately the website and the operation isn’t as polished as the social ads. I was hoping to be a bit less harsh, but unfortunately the more I looked into the competition – the more I found things that need to be mentioned and scored accordingly.
Finally, as mentioned in the Gaming Giveaways review: A lot of these smaller prizes and smaller competitions with better chances to win these small prizes encourage addictive play style and overspending. Which is quite funny in a way as they have a very prominent page and use the “Safer Gambling Standard” logo.
And just for the record, while WinWink does say “although entering competitions and/or prize draws is not considered gambling”… Which is true. HOWEVER, I hate to break it to you: If you aren’t adhering to the Gambling Commissions guidelines (which fully they aren’t much like many other ‘competitions’), you are considered to be gambling – and should be registered accordingly.
But what makes the ‘responsible claim’ a bit funny is that when you get to the basket, they then upsell you more and more tickets with quantity discounts on the checkout. Ah, yes. This seems very ‘responsible’!
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