Raffle promotion

[Jayv2251]

I have a prize I would like to raffle off as part of a promotion for my business. I am not charging for raffle tickets. Own a sharpening service local to me. For 1 month I would like to give a chance for each item all my clients bring me to sharpen. The prize is a Leatherman brand work knife. I've read and understood the policy Square has regarding knives and I stay within that guideline only offering work knives and culinary knives. Since I'm not charging for each chance, would this be prohibited as per the TOS on gambling and such? If not in violation, can Square online track the chances and customers for me?  

[_Violet]

Hi @Jayv2251 - Thanks for reaching out to us here on the Square Seller Community👋

I'm happy to help but will need some more detail in order to better understand your question. Since you are not "selling" the raffle tickets and you are just offering the prize for free (meaning you're not technically selling anything through Square) how are you picturing using Square Online for this? Do you have some sort of form on your website where you are tracking the raffle entries or has that not been set up yet? Just wanting to understand your vision for this process.
 

Whenever you have a moment, please reply to this message with a little more information describing your question. I'll be sure to follow up as soon as possible! 🙂

[Jayv2251]

Honestly, I'm not sure right now where I want to go with this. I'm struggling because I'm getting hits to my Google Business listing. In fact, I'm #1 on the list for my area. Being new, however, I only have a few 5-star reviews. I had hoped by offering some sort of incentive to get the online version of window shoppers to take a chance and allow me to provide a service to them. I honestly made the mistake of calling this a "raffle". By definition a raffle, one sells tickets for a price, and the buy receive a chance to win a prize. These are usually done for a charitable organization for fundraising. But...those are not allowed per the TOS through Square/Weebly. The next option is to run a sweepstakes. To remain legal in the eyes of the law, you cannot force someone into purchasing something for a chance. Which is actually what I wanted to do... "For every item sharpened, get 1 chance to win XXXXX". 

So neither a raffle nor a sweepstake is a viable option as I see it. If they were legal or not against the TOS, I can ill afford to give away something right now. I could only do so for paying clients. This in a way throws a huge wrench into future plans because I was contemplating joining a "knife of the month" club. Where I would do a video review of a "mystery knife" sent by one of the numerous knife clubs online. Then "raffle" that off to all my customers. If I had a large enough customer base where I wouldn't feel the "sting" of giving something away like that, I probably wouldn't need to do that type of promotion in the first place. 

[Bronze_Palms]

Maybe for every $10 or so clients can unlock a raffle ticket. This way your business is still earning and encourages people to invest more to win big!