The Birthday Draw is a weekly UK prize draw from ITV and Global with a top prize of at least £1 million. It opened for entries on 12 January 2026. Here’s what its own terms say about who runs it, your money, refunds and your chances, so you can judge it yourself.
Who runs The Birthday Draw?
The terms name two joint promoters “responsible for all aspects of The Birthday Draw”: ITV Consumer Limited, ITV White City, 201 Wood Lane, London W12 7RU, and Global Media Group Services Limited, 30 Leicester Square, London WC2H 7LA. Both are part of large, well-known UK media groups. Questions and complaints go to [email protected], and the terms say they aim to resolve queries within 28 days.
Is it legal?
It runs as a prize draw with a free postal route: “No purchase necessary. Postal entry available.” That free route is how UK pay-to-enter draws stay outside lottery licensing (see are online prize draws legit?). The terms say “A postal Entry has the same chances of winning as an online Entry.” You get a 16-digit code online, write it on a postcard or the outside of a sealed envelope (one code each) and post it to The Birthday Draw, PO Box 8784, Derby, DE1 9AP. It must arrive within the postal validation period after the Sunday close.
Is it secure? Accounts, payments and winnings
- Account. You give your name, date of birth, a verified email address and a verified phone number. One account per person, 18 or over, UK residents only.
- Paying. PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, credit card or debit card.
- Small wins. Up to £499.99 goes into your account. You can use it on more entries or withdraw it to PayPal, within 12 months.
- Big wins. £500 or more needs a claim, a verification call and possibly photo ID, then payment by BACS “within 28 days of initial contact”.
- Publicity. High value winners’ first name, surname initial and town may be published.
The Birthday Draw refund policy
- Single entries. By entering you consent to the service starting immediately, and the terms say any right to cancel under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 “will be lost”. Expect no refund once an entry is bought.
- Subscriptions. Cancel any time in Account settings, but before the monthly payment date (currently the 1st) to avoid next month’s charge. “Refunds will not be offered for cancelled subscriptions”: your entries run to the end of the month.
- The 14-day exception. You can cancel the payment authority within 14 days of setting it up and ask [email protected] for a pro-rata refund of draws that haven’t started.
- If they end it. The promoters can end a subscription with 30 days’ email notice; draws already paid for are honoured or refunded pro rata.
What are the odds of winning?
The terms don’t publish odds and don’t say how the winning combination is chosen, only that “All prizes are awarded by chance.” Each entry is a date from the last 100 years (DD MM YY), a letter and one of 12 colours. That is about 36,500 dates × 26 letters × 12 colours, roughly 11.4 million combinations. If every combination is equally likely, one entry has about a 1 in 11.4 million chance of matching all four for the top prize, and about 1 in 365 of matching the day and month for the £5 prize. That is our arithmetic, not a figure from the promoters. The £1 million is a minimum and is “shared equally” between entries that match.
Where your money goes
The weekly prize fund is “forty percent (40%) of Net Entry Sales”. Of each paid entry, 11p goes to the £1 million fund. Every £5 date prize is paid, an amount is set aside for subscriber prizes, and the rest is split about 63% to tier 4, 18.5% to tier 3 and 18.5% to tier 2. An entry costs £2, or £1 on a subscription, with up to 60 entries per account a week.
So, is The Birthday Draw safe?
On its terms it is a properly documented draw from two large, named UK companies, with a real free postal route, an 18+ rule, identity checks before big payouts and a stated payment time. What it doesn’t publish is the chance of winning or how the winning combination is drawn. Safe and good value are different questions: about 40p in every £1 of net sales is set aside for prizes. Compare that with other formats in The Birthday Draw vs prize competitions.
Sources: The Birthday Draw terms and conditions (version effective 7 September 2026, read 26 October 2026) and ITV’s launch release. Hoardsy runs a rival prize competition site and has no link to The Birthday Draw, ITV or Global. Terms change: check the current version before you enter.
How Hoardsy runs its competitions
- Closing dates are never extended for slow sales.
- There’s no minimum number of sales: every end-draw prize and top instant prize is awarded, sold out or not.
- Every competition page shows its prizes and your chance per ticket before you enter.
- Every competition can be entered free by post, with the same chances as a paid ticket. See free postal entry.
Keep reading
- All Hoardsy guides
- Is The Birthday Draw safe?
- The Birthday Draw vs prize competitions
- UK prize draw rules and the 2026 code
- What the ASA has ruled on UK competition sites
Last checked 26 October 2026.
Hoardsy
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Choose a draw or an instant game. Every prize and its chance is on the page before you enter.
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