FAQ & Troubleshooting

Quick answers to the questions operators ask most, organised by symptom. Each answer gives you the short version and links to the full walkthrough. If you can't find your question here, try the search box at the top of the page — every guide also has its own Troubleshooting section.

Orders & payments

A customer says they paid but their order shows Pending

Open the order and check its timeline. If the payment genuinely settled in your gateway portal (use the portal link on the order panel) but the order never completed, use Update Status → Completed to trigger fulfilment — tickets are created and the confirmation email is sent. If the gateway shows no settled payment, do nothing: the reservation will expire, the tickets return to the pool, and the customer can simply buy again. See Orders → Troubleshooting and Manually change a payment status.

An order is stuck in Processing

Wait — Processing means your payment gateway hasn't given a final answer yet, and the platform deliberately locks the status until it does. If it stays stuck for a long time, check the payment in your gateway portal via the link on the order panel. See Orders → Troubleshooting.

A customer wants a refund for one competition from a multi-item order

Open the order, click Cancellation Options…, and choose Specific items — then tick just the competition lines you want to cancel and refund. The refund amount and its card/balance split are shown before you confirm. Full steps in Cancel and refund an order.

Can I refund individual tickets, or choose whether the money goes to card or wallet?

No to both. Refund granularity is per competition line — you can't refund some tickets within a line and keep the rest. And the refund destination is automatic: whatever the customer paid with wallet credit returns to their balance, and the remainder goes back to their card. If a customer wants wallet-refunded money as cash, they can request a withdrawal. See Refund to card vs wallet credit.

How do I give someone free tickets without payment?

Use Create Order on the Orders page — admin-created orders are always free, for an existing customer or a manually recorded postal entrant. To give free entries to many customers at once for a single competition, use the Add Entries tool on that competition's Entries tab instead. See Create an order (free entry) and Give free entries to customers.

Winners & draws

How do I run the draw for a competition that's ended?

Go to Admin → Draws — every competition that has ended or sold out queues there automatically. Select the competition, pick a draw mode (sold only, full range, or manual entry), and click Draw Winner; for multi-winner competitions, keep drawing until every winner is assigned. Only Admins can run draws. Full walkthrough on Winner Draws.

What's the difference between the Sold only, Full range and Manual entry draw modes?

Sold only draws from sold tickets, so every draw produces a winner — the default. Full range draws across the entire ticket range, so it can land on an unsold number, in which case you redraw. Manual entry has no RNG at all: you record the ticket number from a draw you ran off-site (ball machine, wheel spin). See Choose a draw mode.

The draw landed on an unsold ticket — what do I do?

Nothing has gone wrong: full-range draws can hit unsold numbers by design. Click Redraw in the amber banner and draw again until a sold ticket comes up — every attempt, including misses, is kept in Draw History so your audit trail is complete. See Draw across the full ticket range.

How do I run a draw live on stream?

Set up the draw as normal, then click Livestream Mode (top right of the Draws page). The admin furniture disappears and the screen becomes a full-screen, branded draw display — your logo and theme, no customer data, with a confetti celebration on the reveal. See Run a draw live on stream.

How do I postpone a draw?

Move the competition's End Date & Time later on its edit page (Settings tab) before it ends — entries stay open until the new date, and an automatic draw won't fire until after it. Be thoughtful about moving a draw customers were expecting: announce the change prominently and avoid doing it repeatedly. See End, extend or cancel a competition and Automatic vs manual draws.

What happens if the competition doesn't sell all its tickets before the draw?

Nothing blocks the draw. When you run it, choose Sold only for a guaranteed winner from the sold tickets, or Full range if your terms promise a draw over the whole number range — with a redraw whenever an unsold number comes up. See Choose a draw mode.

How do I add winner photos and stories to my public site?

Use the Winner Gallery (Admin → Winner Gallery). Add a photo item — linked to a drawn winner, an instant win claim, or standalone — and set it to Published; it appears on the Gallery tab of your public Winners page. The public gallery shows items newest first (there is no drag-to-reorder control — see the reordering tips on the gallery page), and you can unpublish any item at any time. See Winner Gallery.

Customers & accounts

How do I block or suspend a customer's account?

Open their profile and click Lock Account — choose a duration (1 hour up to Permanent) and give a reason. The customer is logged out of all sessions immediately and can't get back in until the lock expires or you unlock them. See Lock or unlock an account.

A customer phoned asking to be self-excluded — how do I set it for them?

On Responsible Play → Users, click Set User Exclusion, search for the customer, and choose a duration — 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days, or permanent — with an optional reason for your records. It takes effect immediately: they can no longer add to basket or place orders. See Set a self-exclusion for a customer.

How do I check a customer's total spend for an affordability or compliance query?

Run Admin → Reports → Customer Spend with a date range that matches the query (All Time for lifetime figures) and find them in the Top Spenders table. For a customer who isn't a top spender, or for their full account picture — orders, wallets, verification — look them up in Users instead. See Check a customer's spend.

A customer can't log in

Check, in order: whether the account is locked (the profile footer shows Unlock Account), whether they've lost their authenticator (use the 2FA Reset), whether they need a password reset they can't receive by email, and whether the account is archived (permanent — archived customers can never log in). Step-by-step in Users → Troubleshooting.

Emails & notifications

A customer says they didn't get their verification email

In Logs → Email Logs, search their address with the Template filter set to Email Verification. If it was delivered, point them at spam/junk; if it bounced or failed, check Email Suppressions and remove the suppression if the address is valid, then have them request a fresh email from your site's /resend-verification page. As a last resort, once you're satisfied the address is really theirs, tick Email Verified on their profile to verify them manually. Full runbook in Logs → Troubleshooting.

How do I resend an order confirmation email?

You can't — there is no resend button on the platform. Check the email logs to see what happened to the original send, fix whatever blocked it (suppression, wrong address) so future emails get through, and reassure the customer that the email is only a receipt: the tickets on their order are theirs regardless. See Check whether a customer received an email and Orders → Troubleshooting.

A winner says they never received their notification email

There's no one-click resend, so investigate instead: search Email Logs for their address with the Template set to Main Prize Win (or Instant Win) and check the status. If it failed or was suppressed, fix the cause and contact the winner directly — their win is recorded in Winners regardless of the email. See Winners → Troubleshooting.

A customer's profile shows their email address as blocked

The red no-entry icon means the address is on the suppression list — usually after a hard bounce or spam complaint. Look it up on the Email Suppressions tab in Logs to see the type and reason, and remove it if the address is genuinely valid. See Re-enable emails to a wrongly suppressed address.

Competitions

How do I cancel a competition and refund everyone?

Two steps, and the order matters. First set the competition's Status to Cancelled on its Settings tab — this takes the page off your public listings but does not refund anyone automatically. Then refund each order from the Orders page, where the cancel/refund flow includes a "Cancelled Competition" reason. Plan your customer communications before you flip the status. See End, extend or cancel a competition and Cancel and refund an order.

How do I schedule a competition to appear on my site at a specific time?

Set Visible From on the Settings tab — it controls when the competition appears publicly, separately from the Start Date. Set the competition Active now with a Visible From of Friday 6pm and it stays hidden (with an amber Hidden badge in your list) until then; the copy-URL button gives you a preview link to share for sign-off in the meantime. See Schedule when a competition appears.

How do I set up early bird pricing?

Toggle on Early Bird Pricing in the create wizard's Step 2 (or the Settings tab when editing), choose a percentage or fixed discount, and set at least one end condition: an end date, a tickets-sold threshold, or both — early bird ends at whichever comes first, and the price reverts automatically. A live preview shows the discounted price as you type. See Set up early bird pricing.

How do I export the entrants list for a competition?

Open the competition's Entries tab and click Export CSV. You get every purchased entry (postal and comped entries included; unsold and reserved tickets are not) in a spreadsheet named with the competition slug and today's date — handy for off-site draws, auditors and free-entry compliance records. See Export entries to CSV.

How do I bulk-issue free entries for a giveaway or promotion?

On the competition's Entries tab, click Add Entries → Pick Users, select the customers, and set the entries per user — one free order is created per customer, with ticket numbers assigned automatically and any instant wins triggering immediately. The per-order and per-user caps still apply, and the panel reminds you of the limits. See Give free entries to customers; for postal entries use Record a postal entry.

Can I reuse the same instant win prize across competitions?

Yes — set it up once as a prize template (Admin → Content → Instant Wins) with its title, type, value and image, then choose From Template whenever you add instant wins to a competition. The details are copied in at that moment, so editing the template later never rewrites prizes you've already added. See Create a prize template and Apply a template to a competition.

How do I preview or test the instant win games before launching?

Click Test Games on the Instant Wins page. The game tester lets you play every reveal game yourself with any mix of winning and losing tickets — no purchases, real competitions or real prizes involved. It's separate from the customer-facing "try it" demo you can enable in Settings. See Test the games and Let customers try a game before buying.

How do I take my site offline for maintenance, or show a pre-launch countdown?

Go to Settings → General → Maintenance & Launch Mode. Maintenance replaces your site with a message you write — customers can't browse or buy while it's on. Launch Mode shows a countdown instead, and the site launches itself automatically when the countdown completes. Select Site Live and save to bring it back manually. See Take the site offline or show a launch countdown.

How do I build trackable links for a marketing campaign?

Use the built-in URL Builder (Marketing → URL Builder). Pick the destination — your homepage or a specific competition — fill in the campaign source, medium and name, and copy the generated link; results show up in Website Analytics. See Build trackable links with the URL Builder.

Money & withdrawals

How do I give a customer site credit as a goodwill gesture?

Open their profile from Users, scroll to Credit Wallet, and use the Credit Adjustment form: enter a positive amount and a reason (e.g. "Manual credit for customer service issue"), then click Apply. The balance updates immediately and the adjustment appears in the customer's own wallet history as an Admin Adjustment. Use a negative amount to deduct. See Grant site credit to a customer.

A withdrawal failed and I need to put the money back — how do I credit a cash wallet?

First check whether you actually need to: rejecting a withdrawal automatically returns the held amount to the customer's cash wallet as a Withdrawal Refund. Only reach for the Cash Adjustment form on their profile (positive amount + reason) for corrections outside that flow — for example a completed payout your bank later bounced back. See Reject a withdrawal and Add or deduct cash from a customer's wallet.

Where do I get revenue and order figures for my accountant?

Run Admin → Reports → Revenue with the Last Month preset (tick "Include payment gateway fees in costs" if you account for fees as a cost of sale), then run the Orders and Wallets reports for the same range if you need matching order counts and cash movements. The reports are on-screen summaries — there's no export button, so copy the figures or print the page. See Get figures for your accountant.

How much cash do I owe customers right now?

Run Admin → Reports → Wallets — the snapshot shows your live cash wallet liability, pending payouts awaiting action, and cash in versus cash out for your chosen window, with a link straight to the withdrawals queue. See Check wallet liability.