Rules regarding raffles/contents

evrelia

I'm based in the UK but a large portion of my viewer base is from the U.S.

I was considering doing a "raffle" type contest where viewers would donate $1 to be entered into the contest, and then the winner would be randomly selected and given a prize like a Razer Blackwidow. 

However, I've just realised that that could be perceived as gambling. Would it be better to phrase it as a "donor only contest" and say that only those who have donated can be considered for the prize? (We're doing giveaways for everyone in the channel, but as this was a more expensive one we wanted it to be limited to donors). I'm not sure what the laws are in the US about this or even which laws we have to consider, or what Twitch's policy is about this. I know some big streamers do subscriber only contests which would be similar to donor only.

xangold

I can't imagine that would be legal, as you would need to comply with your own countries gaming laws (IE get an operators license, remote license) as well as you would have to verify that each of the "donators" are not breaking their local laws. 

Running a subscriber only contest is fine I think, as long as the raffle itself isn't providing you with profits, since the purchase of a subscription was not tied to being an entry to the raffle, but is a separate purchase from a 3rd party.

I'm not a lawyer so I can't actually answer this with 100% certainty, but I can say with almost certainty that running a lottery on twitch is not allowed/legal even if it isn't explicitly disallowed in the TOS.

Fire

Raffles are allowed as long as they're legitimate