Competition companies are moving into hunting and shooting. The industry that raffles cars at airports has expanded during the coronavirus lockdown into selling tickets to win guns.
Where shooters are used to paying £25 or more for a ticket to win a gun from one of the shooting organisations, now companies such as Hunter Giveaways, Smoking Barrel Sporting Services and Tweedl are offering shooting kit and even a shotgun.
Hunter Giveaways pitches its ticket prices from £1. It is part of a fishing lottery company called Carphunter Giveaways. Its first shooting prizes is pigeon hide kit priced in two or three figures. Competitors that offer higher priced prizes ask higher prices for tickets. Smoking Barrels Sporting Services prices its tickets at £15.
The companies in this market deny that they are competing with the shooting organisations’ money-raising raffles. They point to charity work they undertake. They stress they are careful to operate within the terms of the 2005 Gambling Act, which has rules about the promotion of lotteries.
The launch of new players in this industry marks a shift towards shooting organisations using external agencies to promote their raffles. The Countryside Alliance handed its 2021 draw to CFP, an external lottery manager, registered with the Gambling Commission under the Gambling Act. The GWCT runs its own draws.
