The July picture in numbers: lots of new comps, fewer big finishes

The headline is volume. Across Saturday 23 May to Tuesday 23 June (our July reporting window), Find Competitions tracked 1,976 new competitions going live. In the same period, zero competitions reached their end date in our dataset, which tells you something straight away: operators spent this stretch loading the calendar rather than closing out big draws.

On the demand side, ticket buying was busy, especially at weekends. Across the 26 days where we have sales data in that window, entrants bought well over a billion tickets in total, with several days north of 150 million tickets sold. The single biggest spike was Sunday 24 May, with 764,369,846 tickets sold at an average of £2.58 a go. That’s stadium-level crowds, several times over, all chasing prizes from cars to LEGO sets.

The surprising bit is the finish: by Tuesday 23 June, daily ticket sales had fallen to 21,161,650 tickets at an average price of £1.29. So you had more competitions starting, but by the end of the window, far fewer tickets being snapped up each day and at much lower prices.

For entrants, that combination – lots of new draws, calmer end-of-period sales, cheaper tickets – is where the value sat. More choice, less crowding, and a softer hit on the weekly budget.

Ticket prices: a mid-month peak, then a clear slide cheaper

Average ticket prices did not sit still. They swung from premium weekend pricing at the start through to properly budget-friendly entries by the final week.

There were three clear phases:

• Early premium phase (23–31 May)
  Weekend 23–24 May ran hot: Saturday 23 May averaged £2.94 per ticket, followed by that huge Sunday 24 May at £2.58. Through the rest of May, prices stayed mostly between £1.86 and £2.60, with a Sunday bump on 31 May at £1.88 and over 207 million tickets sold.
• Mid-month spike (early June)
  The start of June offered some of the most expensive average tickets in the whole period. Saturday 6 June hit £3.64 on 178,584,856 tickets, and Sunday 7 June sat at £3.44 on 187,663,512 tickets. That’s a clear sign of higher-priced headline draws – big cars, chunky tech bundles or large prize pots – sucking in a lot of spend at weekend prime time.
• Slide to budget entries (mid to late June)
  From Monday 8 June onwards, averages started dropping. By Tuesday 16 June, the average ticket price was down to £1.07 (44,830,122 tickets sold). In the final week we see steady cheap entries: between £1.42 and £1.52 from Friday 19 to Monday 22 June, then £1.29 on Tuesday 23 June.

So across the period, prices broadly moved from around £2–£3.50 per ticket towards roughly £1.30–£1.50. Operators started the cycle leaning on higher-priced draws, then shifted into lower-ticket daily and midweek contests.

If you were waiting for value, the data says you were better off later in the period than earlier. That final week in June offered broadly the same ecosystem of prizes, but on tickets that were roughly a pound cheaper on average than the early-June peak.

What launched: big cars on cheap tickets, tech and toys punching above their weight

Alongside the broad ticket trends, the mix of new headline prizes tells its own story. Among the top active competitions in this period, three categories dominate: cars, tech, and what you might call ‘enthusiast’ prizes (LEGO and high-end PCs).

Five of the most eye-catching draws live during this window looked like this:

• Audi RS6 + Instant Wins #1 – category: Cars, ticket price: £0.49, ending Friday 31 July at 10:59pm.
• VW Tiguan + Fuel Instant Wins #1 – category: Site Credit (effectively motoring-related credit), ticket price: £0.25, ending Monday 29 June at 10:59pm.
• £70K MEGA LEGO Comp + Instant Wins #6 – category: Toys, ticket price: £0.49, ending Monday 20 July at 7:15pm.
• £50K MEGA PC Comp + Instant Wins #10 – category: Tech, ticket price: £0.49, ending Wednesday 24 June at 7:15pm.
• Charmander 5080 PC + Instant Wins #1 – category: Tech, ticket price: £0.30, end date not yet set.

Two things jump out:

• Premium prizes on sub-50p tickets
  The Audi RS6, a serious performance car, was being offered at 49p a ticket. That’s well below the early-June daily average of £3–£3.50, which means operators were leaning on volume sales instead of pushing price. The same pattern shows up in the £70k LEGO comp and the £50k PC bundle – both sat at 49p.
• Tech edges towards ‘everyday’ pricing
  The Charmander 5080 PC – a high-spec gaming computer – ran at 30p a ticket with no fixed end date in our data. That’s down in scratchcard territory, not ‘luxury gadget’ pricing.

Put next to the daily averages, it suggests this: on the days when the overall average ticket price was £2–£3.50, a lot of the smaller or mid-range draws were priced well above these standout big-name comps. The headline prizes here aren’t the expensive tickets; they’re often the keener ones.

For anyone browsing Find Competitions during this period, the value wasn’t just in ‘smaller’ categories like homewares or food. Some of the highest-profile cars and tech bundles were priced to feel like a punt, not a major outlay.

Weekend spikes vs weekday drifts: when tickets actually moved

Ticket sales didn’t flow evenly through the month. They surged at weekends, sagged midweek, then thinned noticeably as the period went on.

Early weekends were huge

• Saturday 23 May: 609,248,106 tickets sold, average price £2.94.
• Sunday 24 May: the monster day, with 764,369,846 tickets at £2.58.
• Saturday 30 May: 153,739,055 tickets at £1.86.
• Sunday 31 May: 207,483,547 tickets at £1.88.

Those first two weekends look like coordinated pushes: operators launching or heavily promoting big-ticket draws, with prices to match. The fact that Sunday 24 May shifted more than three quarters of a billion tickets at over £2.50 each tells you entrants were willing to pay up when the prizes caught their eye.

Midweek was busy, but calmer

Through early June, weekday sales ran in the 140–195 million tickets band most days, as on Wednesday 10 June with 194,057,150 tickets at an average of £2.80. That’s still serious activity, but it’s not the early weekend frenzy.

Late-period fatigue set in

• Tuesday 16 June: 44,830,122 tickets, average £1.07.
• Sunday 21 June: 98,517,961 tickets, average £1.42.
• Tuesday 23 June: 21,161,650 tickets, average £1.29.

By the final week, sales volume was a fraction of what it had been a fortnight earlier, even though new draws were still being added. That mix – more competitions, fewer tickets per day – generally points to entry caps not being hammered as consistently as in the busy early weekends, simply because there were fewer tickets in play.

For entrants, this matters more than it might seem. Those quieter late-June days, with tickets around the £1.30 mark and no giant surge in sales, were likely where the odds per pound spent looked healthiest, especially in smaller or niche categories.

Category value: cars and tech look pricey, but the numbers say otherwise

Talk to most regulars and they’ll tell you cars and big tech bundles ‘feel’ expensive and competitive. The July data only half agrees.

On the face of it, the early-June spike around £3–£3.64 a ticket suggests pricey play. But when you overlay the actual flagship competitions live at that time, the picture softens:

• The Audi RS6 + Instant Wins #1 draw offered a high-end car at £0.49 per entry.
• The £50K MEGA PC Comp + Instant Wins #10 was also £0.49 a ticket.
• The £70K MEGA LEGO Comp + Instant Wins #6 again ran at £0.49.
• The Charmander 5080 PC sat even lower, at £0.30.

So whilst the average ticket price in early June was high, the headline prizes were, if anything, on sale. It implies a gap: many smaller draws – the sort of thing you might file under home, beauty or lifestyle – were priced well above what these blockbuster prizes charged per entry.

Because we don’t have full category splits in this dataset, we can’t quote precise ‘average price by category’ numbers. But the contrast between our known car and tech draws and the daily averages is stark enough to draw a fair conclusion:

• Cars and big tech offered some of the best value per ticket relative to prize size.
• Everyday categories often carried ‘comfortably priced’ tickets that weren’t always better value than the flashier pages on /competitions.

If your instinct was to avoid the Audi or the mega PC draw because they ‘must be expensive’, July’s data suggests you might have had that the wrong way round. The most efficient use of a fiver was often to buy a small handful of entries into those keener-priced, high-prize draws, rather than spreading it across multiple £2–£3 lifestyle comps.

Instant wins and daily-style draws: more tickets, less drama

The other thread running through July is the prominence of instant wins and what you could call ‘daily-style’ draws: regular, relatively low-priced competitions designed to keep people engaged rather than blow them away with one huge headline date.

All five of the top active competitions we’ve mentioned included instant win elements, and three had numbered iterations (#1, #6, #10) that hint at a rolling schedule. That pattern usually comes with two design choices:

• Lower entry prices – our sample sits between 25p and 49p.
• More frequent start and end times – e.g. ending on specific evenings like Monday 29 June at 10:59pm or Wednesday 24 June at 7:15pm, rather than all clustering at month-end.

Combine that with the late-June daily averages of roughly £1.30–£1.50 and falling ticket volumes, and you get a clear shift: operators leaned into cheaper, more regular, instant-win-flavoured draws once the early-month push was over.

From a value perspective, that meant two things for entrants:

• Smaller, more predictable spends
  Instead of saving up for one £10 punt on a big launch weekend, you could treat yourself to 20–30 entries at 30–50p across several days without wrecking your budget.
• Less crowding on individual draws
  With only 21,161,650 tickets sold on Tuesday 23 June compared to 764,369,846 on Sunday 24 May, each competition running at the end of the period likely saw far fewer entries than those caught up in the early rush.

That doesn’t guarantee better odds – caps, marketing pushes and prize sizes all play a part – but structurally it pushed July’s back half towards calmer, more budget-friendly play.

What this means for August: five practical moves

So, if July looked like this – big early spikes, then cheaper, quieter days with strong value in cars and tech – how should you adjust your approach for August?

Based on the numbers we’ve got, five plain-English moves stand out:

1. Don’t fear the headline prizes
   In this period, premium draws like the Audi RS6 and £50k PC bundle ran at 30–49p a ticket, whilst the overall average on busy days sat above £2.50. When you’re on Find Competitions, check the actual ticket price for the big prizes. If it’s under 50p, that’s often stronger value than two or three smaller draws at £2–£3 each.
2. Time your entries away from the feeding frenzies
   The difference between 764,369,846 tickets sold on Sunday 24 May and 21,161,650 on Tuesday 23 June is huge. If your schedule allows, consider favouring late-month or midweek entries, when sales trends suggest fewer people are piling in at once.
3. Use weekends to window-shop, weekdays to enter
   Operators clearly like launching and boosting draws at weekends, especially Saturdays and Sundays with high average prices. A practical rhythm: browse new arrivals and shortlist at the weekend, then place most of your entries on calmer days once the hype dies down a bit.
4. Lean into lower-priced instant win runs
   July’s later days were full of instant-win style draws in the 25–50p range. If you’ve got, say, £10 for the week, that could become 20–40 entries in better-value draws rather than four quick £2.50 shots in noisier ones.
5. Watch your own averages, not just the market’s
   We’ve talked about daily averages moving from about £3.64 down to £1.29, but your personal average matters more. Keep a quiet note of what you’re paying per ticket and how often you’re entering. If your own ‘daily average’ starts creeping above the late-June market average – around £1.30–£1.50 – that’s your cue to pause and re-balance.

The short version: July rewarded patient entrants who waited for the cheaper back half of the month, took advantage of sub-50p tickets on big prizes, and stayed away from the most crowded launch weekends. If August follows the same pattern, you’ll get more play – and potentially better odds – by focusing on value per ticket rather than sheer excitement of the latest banner on the homepage.