• Entering contests with mules or own account
This is not permitted. If proven that a creator has entered a contest with a mule account, it is considered a scam. The creator will be banned along with the mule that was used to enter the contest. And obviously, if the creator joins his/her contest, it is also considered as scam.

• Refunding is required if the contest closes
If you decide to close your contest/lotto before the previously set end date you are required to refund the full amount to participants. This does not mean that the creator needs to refund if a contestant decides to quit. It is up to the creator to decide if s/he will refund when a contestant want to quit the contest. But you must state beforehand if you are refunding or not.

• Must have [item] in order to create [item] lottery
If you want to start a lottery where the prize is i.e. Fairy Wings, you must have the Fairy Wings. Giving the excuse that you will buy the item when you've enough gold from buying tickets is prohibited because of scam risks.
Note: Prizes paid in gold only are still OK. I.e. you create a lottery with 50,000 gold in 1st prize, but do not have that much, and intend to use the ticket sale to pay the winner is OK.

• Present the method of picking the winner
Creator of contest must present which method s/he uses to pick the winner/s. Lotteries must also have a way to randomly pick the winner, i.e. www.randomizer.org or the user of the roll dice post feature. Not required to use either of these particular methods, so long as the method is random.

• Wrapped giftboxes
You can have your prizes in wrapped giftboxes, but if you have promised that the contents of the wrapped giftbox is a certain item or value, then it must contain that certain item or be of that value. If not, it is considered as scamming which is a bannable offense.

• Highest donator contest
Are not permitted. We have had far too many issues with many of these being scams so they have all been dis-allowed. Creating these types of contests will result in a warning and possible banning of your account. Announcement: Read for more information.

• Advertising in threads
Advertising or begging is not permitted in any threads in this forum unless the thread owner has explicitily stated users are free to do so in their thread. If you find users advertising or begging in threads that do not say they can do so please use the "report this post" feature to report it to a moderator.

• Advertising through PMs
Please do NOT PM users to ask them if they would like to join your lottery/contest. This will be treated as spam since it is advertisement. It's unwanted PMs and if someone report it to a moderator, you will receive a warning/ban for spamming. Advertising for your lotto is only permitted in the Chatterbox and done so anywhere else will be treated/warned for spam.

• "Send trade titled 'Banana' otherwise I'll accept it as a donation"
It is fine to request that if a trade is sent with gold for entry that it is somehow labeled so that you know what it is for (in case you are running multiple auctions/charities/lotteries). However, refusing the person entry and instead taking the trade as a donation because it is not labeled a particular way is not allowed, as it is exploiting users to gain gold. If a trade has mistakingly been taken as a donation and the user claims it was for the entry you must enter them or return the gold. There are no exceptions.

• Think through first before creating a lotto/contest
A lotto takes time to manage. Creating a lottery/contest doesn't guarantee you'll earn a profit and it's not your way to a fortune. It all depends on if people buy your tickets, and that depends on if your lottery is good and attractive.

• Spend time to organize your lotto
It's worth it to spend the time to create a lotto that's well organized. Put some effort into creating the lotto/contest. The main reason is because this helps your lotto look well established and gives the buyers a good impression.

• Refund if participants quits?
You need to let the buyers know if you refund to the participants in case they want to quit. If they want to withdraw from the lottery/contest, will you refund 100%? Or will you not refund at all and let them stay? This is very important to include as users often like to know what they are getting themselves into.

• Setting up your own rules
Please remember to set up your rules for the contest. If you don't put up your rules, a user might have the right to i.e. demand you to refund, since it doesn't state that you will not refund if a participant quits. However, please keep in mind that your rules are not to violate our own. As well, if you have set up a rule for your thread that is not covered by Gaia ToS or the forum rules it is your responsibility to enforce those rules. (ex. User spams your thread, since spamming in general is not a violation of the Lotto forum rules you should handle this yourself such as refunding the user and removing them from your contest.) Please keep in mind this does not mean you can violate the rules by handling these, but it is not the responsibility of moderators to enforce your own created rules.

• Using price values when accepting items as payment
For the lotteries who accept items as payment for tickets, please make sure that the value of items you accept are being treated at the same value the items can be purchased as.
(ex. Tickets being sold for 100g each. User offers Sealed letter which is generally 6-7k, the user should recieve roughly 60-70 tickets in return respectfully.)

• Method of picking a winner in lotteries
Many users choose http://www.randomizer.org to pick the winners in their lottery. It's advised to use this, or something like it, since it's a tool to randomly pick the winner.
Update: It's not yet a requirement to use the "Roll Dice" or "Random number" featured in Gaia's posting system, but it ensures the security of that the lottery is scam-free as users cannot control the outcome on their own.

• Earning a lot =/= good for business
It's not prohibited to earn more than 50% of the sales, but be smart. If the odds to win is low, ticket price is high compared to how much you will win, people won't buy tickets to your lottery.

• 50 million Lotto!!
Realistically these types of lottos are not possible. Even users who are well respected and very active generally cannot run a successful lotto of this size. This is because it usually requires hundreds of thousands of participants, or participants who are willing to dish out hundreds of thousands of gold. Very unlikely. To run a successful lotto you should think of one that could realistically be done within only a month or two. There are some that run a lot longer, and are successful. However when starting out, you should start small. Suitable lottos for people starting out are 5k, 10k, 50k, and 100k. This does not mean that larger lottos are scam. This is merely a suggestion for a succesful lotto.
Note: Do not report a lotto just because it is larger and the creator is new. A users join date and size of a lotto does not determine if it is a scam or not.


• Too good to be true
If you see a lotto or contest that seems too good to be true, take your time to think twice before entering. 10 spots, 1000 gold / spot, and 5 million in prize? Doesn't sound logical right? These kind of lotteries / contests are usually scams. If you see these kind of lotteries / contests, do report them using the Report a Scamming form. Do not report these using the "report this thread/post" button.

• Entering =/= guaranteed prize
Remember that just because you've entered a lottery/contest, doesn't mean that it's guaranteed that you'll win. There are winners and losers in all contests.

• Read the rules
Before entering a lottery or a contest, please remember to read the rules. I.e., if you didn't know that the owner of a lottery didn't refund if a user wanted to quit, and you want to refund, PMing a mod doesn't help anything. If the creator states refunds will not be given if you leave, you will not get your gold back.
Same with Avatar contests, if you failed to read the rules, it is not the creators fault. You have to be sure to carefully read and understand the rules.

• Item lotteries
If you've joined an item lottery, and suspect that the user doesn't have the item in question, you can ask the lottery creator to put the item on (politely please, do not act or treat the user as a scammer). If the the creator refuses, you can fill out the Report a Scamming form to notify a mod and have a moderator to investigate this.

• Wrapped giftboxes
Be very suspicious about wrapped giftboxes. There is no way to gaurantee what is in the boxes. If a deal never had anything to do with an item in a wrapped giftbox, do not confirm the trade. The item in the wrapped giftbox is probably not the promised item. If a user is trying to provide a prize with a wrapped gift politely ask them to open the box before you accept the trade.