Blue Cross Review

Charity lotteries can be a nice change of pace if you like a simple weekly flutter and don’t care about slots or sports. Pet Lottery is exactly that: a UK-licensed weekly charity lottery run by Blue Cross, where your stake goes towards animal welfare rather than a commercial operator’s profit.

The Pet Lottery is a straightforward, raffle-style game rather than a full gambling site. There are no slots, no table games and no sportsbook – just a weekly draw and occasional bigger “Super Draws”. It’s aimed at players who want a low-stakes, set-and-forget lottery with guaranteed prizes and a clear charity angle.

Pet Lottery is operated by Blue Cross, a long-established UK animal charity (registered in England and Wales and in Scotland) that uses the lottery as a fundraising tool. The lottery is licensed and regulated by the UK Gambling Commission under account number 004691, and there’s no sign of any transfer of ownership or sale of the operation – it’s run in-house as part of the charity’s fundraising. Draws run weekly, with information from 2024–2025 showing it’s very much active and ongoing.

Games and Betting at Pet Lottery

If you’re used to big casino lobbies, Pet Lottery will feel extremely simple – that’s the point. You’re buying entries into a regular charity lottery rather than browsing a game catalogue.

The core product is a weekly lottery draw with a fixed prize structure and a set number of winners each time. Based on recent information, a typical weekly draw looks like this:

• Top prize of £1,000
• 5 prizes of £25
• 94 prizes of £5
• 100 guaranteed prizes in total every week

On top of that, entries are also rolled into quarterly “Super Draws” with bigger jackpots. The typical Super Draw structure includes:

• £10,000 top prize
• Several mid-range cash prizes (for example, 5 x £500)
• Further smaller prizes (for example, 10 x £25 and 90 x £10)

The odds are more transparent than many commercial draws. Across four raffles in 2024, the average chance of winning with a single ticket was quoted at around 1 in 908. That’s not life-changing lottery odds, but it’s reasonable for a charity lottery where a big chunk of ticket sales goes to good causes.

There are no software providers to talk about because this isn’t a casino platform. You don’t log in to spin reels or play live dealer games – you sign up to a weekly lottery entry, usually via Direct Debit, and then wait for the draws. Prizes are paid out automatically if you win, so you’re not managing a wallet or requesting withdrawals in the same way you would on a betting site.

In terms of access, the lottery is open to UK mainland residents aged 18 or over, but excludes the Isle of Man, Channel Islands and BFPO addresses. This is a charity product targeted very much at the domestic UK market.

Mobile experience is essentially just the main Blue Cross site and the Pet Lottery pages optimised for mobile browsers. There’s no dedicated gambling app, but you don’t really need one – once your entries are set up, you’re not interacting with the site every day. You might only pop back to check results, update details or read more about where the funds are going.

Payment Options

Pet Lottery is designed as a regular, low-stakes commitment rather than something you top up and cash out from repeatedly. The main way to play is by setting up a Direct Debit for a fixed weekly amount per entry.

That means:

• You choose how many entries you want per week
• Payments are collected automatically from your bank each month
• You don’t manually “deposit” or “withdraw” like on a casino

Because this is a charity lottery, prize payments are usually sent out automatically to winners by cheque or bank transfer, depending on how you’ve registered and what details you’ve given them. There’s no instant e-wallet cashout or card withdrawal process to manage. You’re not holding a balance on-site; you’re either a winner and get paid, or you’re not.

If you’re looking for a site where you can move money in and out several times a week and chase fast withdrawal speeds, this setup won’t scratch that itch. It’s closer to a charity subscription with a gambling element than a traditional online betting account.

Safety and Licensing

From a regulatory point of view, Pet Lottery is on solid ground. Blue Cross holds a UK Gambling Commission operating licence (account number 004691) to run the lottery, and the product is clearly positioned as a society lottery for charitable purposes rather than a commercial gambling brand.

Standard UK protections apply: age verification, responsible gambling messaging and access to independent dispute resolution if you can’t resolve an issue directly. Complaints are handled first by the charity’s own team and can be escalated to the Independent Betting Adjudication Service (IBAS) if needed.

Should You Play at Pet Lottery?

Whether Pet Lottery is “worth it” depends entirely on what you want from gambling.

You’ll probably like it if:

• You want a simple weekly flutter with fixed stakes and no temptation to chase losses
• You like the idea that a high proportion of ticket sales (around two-thirds in 2024) goes to animal welfare
• You’re not interested in slots, tables or sports – or you already play elsewhere and just want a small extra lottery on the side
• You prefer set-and-forget Direct Debit entries and automatic payouts

It’s not a good fit if:

• You want a full online gambling experience with lots of games and betting markets
• You care about instant deposits/withdrawals and managing a betting balance
• You’re chasing massive national-lottery-style jackpots – the top weekly prize is £1,000, with £10,000 in the Super Draws

As a gambling option, Pet Lottery is very narrow: one product, fixed stakes, modest but guaranteed prize pools. As a charity lottery, it does what it says – gives you a small chance of a win while sending most of your stake to a well-known UK animal charity. If that balance of low-key gambling and supporting pets appeals to you, it’s worth a look. If you’re after variety, high-frequency action or big-game lobbies, you’ll need to pair this with a more traditional casino or bookmaker elsewhere.