Terms and conditions

1. Who runs it

Lucky Squares is run by Gnosall St Lawrence PSFA, a registered charity, as a small society lottery registered with Stafford Borough Council. The named promoter, the registration number and the promoter's address are shown on every game page and on every ticket.

2. Who can take part

You must be 16 or over to buy a square. We ask you to confirm this before you pay.

Committee members and trustees of the PSFA, and the person who built and maintains this website, may not buy squares and cannot win. The winning squares are generated automatically by the computer system and the numbers are not known by anyone.

3. Buying a square

Every square in a game costs the same. You choose the squares you want and pay by card. Your square is held for you while you are paying and released if the payment does not complete, so a square is only yours once the payment has gone through.

We will email you a ticket confirming what you bought. Keep it — it is your record, and it carries the details the law requires us to give you.

4. What you win

Each game pays three prizes: first, second and third. Between them they come to a percentage of what the game actually raises, and that percentage is stated on the game page before you buy. The rest goes to PSFA funds, which pay for equipment, trips and activities for the children at the school.

The prize share is divided between the three places in the ratio 6:3:1 — first prize is six times third prize, and second prize three times it. Each prize is then set to a whole multiple of £5, and anything the rounding leaves over goes to PSFA funds along with the rest.

The prizes are a share of what is raised, not fixed sums of money. If a game does not sell every square, the prizes are worked out the same way from the smaller amount raised. Where too little has been raised to pay three prizes of at least £5 each, the game pays two prizes, or one.

The card processing fees are an expense of the lottery and come out of the prize-and-expenses share, never out of the charity's share.

5. When the draw happens

Each game states two things, both of which are fixed before selling starts and neither of which can be changed afterwards:

• the number of days after the final square sells within which the draw will take place; and
• a backstop date.

The draw happens within that number of days of the last square selling, or on the backstop date, whichever comes first. Squares remain on sale to the end of the backstop day.

6. If a game does not sell out

If every square has not been sold by the backstop date, the draw goes ahead anyway on that date, using only the squares that were actually sold. The prizes are the stated percentage of what was actually raised, split and rounded in the way section 4 describes.

There are no refunds. A square you have bought stays valid and stays in the draw.

7. How the winners are chosen

Before a single square goes on sale, we shuffle every number in the grid into a random order using the computer's cryptographic random number generator, and publish a fingerprint (a SHA-256 hash) of that order on the game page. Nobody can work the order out from the fingerprint, and the fingerprint cannot match any other order.

When the draw is made, first prize goes to the first number in that sealed order which somebody actually bought, second prize to the next one after it, and third prize to the one after that.

A square that has already won is not passed over on the way down. If the same person holds more than one of those squares they take more than one prize — every square bought is one chance at each place, and buying several squares buys several chances.

After the draw we publish the order itself along with the random text it was sealed with, so anyone can recompute the fingerprint and check it matches the one published before selling started. Every square that was sold is equally likely to take each prize, whether the grid filled or not.

8. How you appear on the grid

When you buy, you choose whether your square shows your full name or just your initials. Your choice applies to the grid, to the recent activity list on the game page, and to the announcement of the winners.

If you would rather not appear at all, email us and we will change your square to read simply "Taken". You may also ask us to change between your name and your initials at any time.

We may change how a square is displayed if the name given is unsuitable or could be mistaken for the PSFA itself.

9. Telling the winners, and paying the prizes

We contact each winner using the email address and any telephone number given when they bought the square. Prizes are arranged separately by a trustee — this website never sends money out, and we never ask a winner for their bank details through the site.

If we cannot reach a winner, we will make reasonable efforts to do so for three months from the date of the draw. After that their prize returns to PSFA funds.

10. Pausing or stopping a game

We may pause or stop a game — for example if something needs correcting or an event is cancelled. Squares already bought remain valid and remain in the draw, and the game's backstop date still applies. Payments already under way are allowed to complete.

11. Your information

We hold the name, email address and any telephone number you give us so that we can send your ticket, contact you if you win, and keep the records the council requires. Our privacy notice explains what we keep, why, and for how long.

12. Playing responsibly

This is a fundraiser, not a way to make money. Please only spend what you are comfortable losing. Free, confidential advice is available at BeGambleAware.

13. Complaints

If something has gone wrong, email us and we will look into it. We keep a full record of every game, every purchase and every administrative action, so we can always tell you exactly what happened.