The Club Major Raffle
The typical club raffle raises about $2,000 from sixty-odd buyers in five weeks. It pays for a set of jerseys. The raffle that pays for the lights, the canteen refit or the junior program is a different animal, and clubs run it far less often than they could: one club raffle in five clears $5,000, and the ones that do are built differently from the start.
We pulled every club raffle since 2016 that grossed $5,000 or more. There are 435, from 335 clubs. Here is what they have in common.
The shape of a club major raffle
| Club raffles over $5,000 | |
|---|---|
| Raffles | 435 (from 335 clubs) |
| Median raised | $9,400 |
| Top quarter | $15,200 and up |
| Largest on the platform | $780,000 |
| Median number of buyers | 192 |
| Spend per buyer | $48 |
| Typical ticket | $10 |
| Median campaign | 55 days (about 8 weeks) |
| Median sell-through of the ticket cap | 44% |
Against the typical club raffle (66 buyers, a $5 ticket, five weeks) the major raffle has three times the buyers, twice the ticket and roughly twice the run. None of those three is exotic. The buyers are the members’ networks rather than the members; the ticket is $10 with packs; the run is a season instead of a month.
What the prize is
| First prize | Raffles | Median raised | Buyers (median) | Ticket |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Holiday or accommodation | 91 | $10,400 | 224 | $10 |
| Electronics or appliance | 60 | $6,100 | 140 | $20 |
| Boat, motorbike, quad or other vehicle | 57 | $12,300 | 226 | $10 |
| Cash | 55 | $9,900 | 156 | $20 |
| Gift card or voucher | 42 | $8,300 | 204 | $5 |
| Experience or event tickets | 37 | $10,600 | 161 | $10 |
| Sporting goods or leisure | 31 | $9,100 | 182 | $10 |
| Car or ute | 20 | $24,900 | 392 | $50 |
The holiday is the most common major-raffle prize and performs well. The vehicle tier is the club specialty: a boat, a motorbike, a quad bike or a ride-on mower raises more than a holiday at the median for a prize that a club’s own sponsors (the marine dealer, the bike shop, the mower shop that already has a sign on the fence) can often supply at cost or as a contra. Across all club raffles, a boat first prize grossed $15,000 at the median and a motorbike or quad $7,000.
Cash works, and it is what the 50/50 format is built on, but it is not a permitted raffle prize in Victoria, where clubs run the same idea as a ladder of sponsor vouchers. The car sits in its own tier: twice the median of anything else, a $50 ticket, and a prize cost that needs a dealer partnership to make sense. If a car is the plan, the school car raffle numbers apply almost unchanged to clubs.
Eleven percent of club prize descriptions credit a sponsor or donor by name. That number should be higher. The prize a sponsor supplies is the prize the raffle can afford, and the sponsor gets eight weeks in front of the club’s whole network. Our prize sponsors guide has the ask.
The ticket and the pack
The median ticket in a major club raffle is $10, and the median buyer spends $48. That gap is the pack ladder: three for $25, five for $40, ten for $80. 59% of club raffle orders are a pack. Keep the single ticket where a junior parent will buy one at the gate; let the pack do the work with the sponsors and the committee’s own networks.
Sell-through in this group is 44% of the ticket cap at the median, lower than for charities. Clubs tend to set caps from the prize-value ratio their state allows rather than from a realistic buyer count, and a raffle that sells 44% of a big cap looks slower than it is. Set the cap you could plausibly sell to three times your membership, and let the platform show the countdown.
Eight weeks, and the room at the end
Major club raffles run for about eight weeks and, more often than not, draw at something: the grand final, presentation night, the Christmas party, the golf day. That is the right structure. The season gives the sponsors and the newsletter time to work; the event sells the last third of the tickets, in person, to people who have already had four reminders.
Two things make the room work. A Tap to Pay seller (or three) at the bar, so nobody is turned away for lack of cash. And a QR code on the table and the screen, so the people who would rather buy on their own phone do. A dinner raffle that combined the two took $40,600 in one evening; the pattern is written up here. If part of the club still likes a paper book, sell it: paper and online merge into one hybrid draw, and about a quarter of club raffles on the current platform run that way.
Selling through the club, not to it
The club major raffle’s 192 buyers are three times a normal club raffle’s, and they do not come from the club getting bigger. They come from each player, parent and committee member selling to their own network with their own link. Give every seller a tracked link, put the leaderboard on the clubhouse screen, and the season raffle becomes a competition the juniors will happily win. The mechanics are in team sales tracking.
Before you launch: the checklist
- The prize, from a sponsor. Boat, bike, quad, mower, holiday, or cash where it is permitted. Ask the sponsors before you buy anything.
- The state rules. Prize-value-to-ticket ratios, permit thresholds, and the Victorian cash rule. The permit checker answers in a minute; the platform checks the rest during setup.
- A $10 ticket and a pack ladder to $80.
- A realistic cap. Three times your membership is a good start.
- Eight weeks, ending at an event. Grand final, presentation night, Christmas party.
- A link per seller and a leaderboard.
- Tap to Pay and a QR code in the room.
- Next year’s committee. The raffle usually leaves with the treasurer. Write down what worked, keep the sponsor list, and hand it over.
About the numbers
Sporting and community club raffles on RaffleLink since 2016 with at least $5,000 in paid ticket sales; 435 raffles from 335 clubs. Prize types come from a classification of each raffle’s first prize (machine-classified, then audited; vehicles checked by hand). Buyers are distinct purchasers. Medians throughout; no club’s result is identified. Australian dollars, gross ticket sales before prize costs and fees.
The clubs page has the full segment picture, and we are happy to talk through a major raffle’s structure on a 15-minute call.
