Sales-promotion games

A distinction is made between two types of game:

This category comprises short-duration lotteries and skill games in sales-promotion contexts which harbour no risk of addiction and where participation requires the purchasing of goods or services at no higher than reasonable market prices.

Operators of such games usually aim to increase their products or services turnover and/or to entertain their customers and thereby to ensure their loyalty. Stakes in such games must not exceed the standard market price for the products offered.

These are short-duration lotteries and skill games offered by media companies for sales-promotion purposes which harbour no risks of addiction. Cost-free participation is granted on the same conditions of access and participation as participation that involves wagering a monetary stake or concluding a legal transaction.

The latter type of game differs from the first in that participation may involve stakes whose value is directly linked to participation in the game. Such stakes often take the form of (excessive) fees that players are forced to pay in order to communicate their participation (e.g. by way of premium rate SMS or phone numbers whereby answers must be submitted).

Sales-promotion games of both types are supervised neither by Gespa nor by any other Swiss licensing authority. Please be cautious therefore when participating in such games – there is no guarantee of a fair chance of winning anything.

Moreover, games of this sort can take on the properties of a lottery or a skill game and turn out to be illegal if failing to meet all the defining criteria of the exceptional cases described above.