You’ve locked in the mechanic, sorted the prizes, briefed the creative team — and then someone asks: “Do we need a permit for this?”
It’s a reasonable question, and the answer depends entirely on where your customers live. Australia doesn’t have a single national framework for trade promotion permits. Instead, you’re dealing with a patchwork of state and territory rules, each with different thresholds, timelines, and requirements. Three jurisdictions require permits. The rest don’t — but they still have conditions you need to meet.
Here’s what you actually need to know before your next campaign goes live.
Which States Require Permits?
Only three Australian jurisdictions require you to obtain a permit or licence before running a trade promotion lottery (a game of chance used to promote goods or services): New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, and South Australia. Every other state and territory — Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, Tasmania, and the Northern Territory — lets you run trade promotions without a permit, provided you follow their prescribed conditions.
That three-out-of-eight split sounds simple, but the details are where campaigns get tripped up.
New South Wales: The Authority Model
NSW uses a system called an “Authority to Conduct a Trade Promotion Lottery.” You need one if the total prize value for a single game of chance promotion exceeds $10,000 and the promotion is open to NSW residents. Games of skill — where the outcome depends on the entrant’s knowledge or ability, not luck — are exempt.
The practical advantage of the NSW system is that authorities can be granted for 1, 3, or 5 years. If you’re a brand running multiple promotions throughout the year, a multi-year authority means you apply once and you’re covered for every promotion that falls within the period. You still need to submit the terms and conditions for each individual promotion to NSW Fair Trading at least 10 business days before launch, but you’re not reapplying for the authority itself each time.
What catches people: the 10-business-day notification window. That’s two full weeks of calendar time, and it starts when Fair Trading receives your complete terms and conditions — not when you email them. If your T&Cs need revision, the clock resets.
Australian Capital Territory: The Lowest Threshold
The ACT has the lowest permit threshold in the country. You need a permit from the ACT Gambling and Racing Commission for any game of chance where the total prize pool exceeds $3,000. For promotions under that amount, you can run without a permit — but you still need to meet the conditions for an “exempt lottery.”
Approval typically takes 3 to 5 business days, which is faster than the other permit states. But the ACT has its own requirements around winner notification: winners must be notified in writing within 21 days of the draw, and if a prize is valued at $1,000 or more, the winner must be published in a regulator-approved format — usually the promoter’s website or a newspaper. Unclaimed prizes require a redraw.
The $3,000 threshold means even modest promotions can trigger a permit requirement if they’re open to ACT residents. A prize pool that sits comfortably under the NSW $10,000 threshold might still need ACT approval.
South Australia: Watch the Scratch Cards
South Australia requires a Trade Promotion Lottery Licence if your total prize pool exceeds $5,000. But there’s a wrinkle that catches people out: if your promotion uses printed scratch-and-win or break-open ticket mechanics, you need a separate instant prize trade promotion licence regardless of the prize value. A $500 scratch card promotion still needs a licence in SA.
Standard applications take 10 business days to assess. Instant prize applications take at least 14 business days. There is a premium fee option for faster assessment on instant prize promotions (5 business days), but it costs more and needs to be factored into your budget.
SA also prohibits advertising a trade promotion until your licence number has been granted. That means you cannot run teaser campaigns, social media previews, or in-store signage until the licence is in hand. The licence number itself must appear on all advertising — a detail that has implications for creative timelines and print deadlines.
What About the Other States?
Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, Tasmania, and the Northern Territory don’t require trade promotion permits. But “no permit” doesn’t mean “no rules.”
Each state has its own conditions that must be met. In Victoria, trade promotions are governed by the Gambling Regulation Act 2003, and the entry cost cannot exceed $1 (which, for most purchase-to-enter promotions where the product is sold at normal retail price, isn’t an issue). Queensland requires that entry be free or tied to goods sold at fair market value. Western Australia requires free entry and prohibits surgical or medical procedures as prizes.
The point is that operating without a permit still means operating within a regulatory framework. The conditions are generally less onerous than the permit process, but they’re not optional. A promotion that complies perfectly in NSW might breach conditions in WA if you haven’t checked.
Does This Apply to Every Type of Promotion?
No. Permit requirements apply specifically to games of chance — prize draws, sweepstakes, instant wins, and any promotion where luck determines the winner. Games of skill, where the outcome is based on the entrant’s ability or knowledge (such as a judged competition for best photo or recipe), generally don’t require permits in any state.
Cashback promotions, gift-with-purchase, and guaranteed reward mechanics don’t typically fall under trade promotion lottery legislation either, because there’s no element of chance. Everyone who meets the conditions gets the reward. That said, if you add a prize draw element on top of a cashback — “claim your cashback and go in the draw to win a trip” — the prize draw component triggers the permit requirements.
This is where what The Shelf Truth calls “The Kill Sheet” is useful: a 15-minute diagnostic that forces you to identify the mechanic, the states you’re operating in, and whether permits are triggered before you get too far down the creative path.
Planning Your Compliance Timeline
The most common mistake isn’t failing to get a permit — it’s leaving it too late. Permit timelines need to be built into your campaign planning from the start, not bolted on at the end.
A practical starting point: if your promotion is open nationally and involves a game of chance with a prize pool over $10,000, assume you need at least four weeks of lead time for compliance. That covers NSW notification (10 business days), ACT approval (3–5 business days), and SA licensing (10–14 business days), with a buffer for any revisions. If scratch cards are involved, add another week for the SA instant prize process.
Your terms and conditions need to be finalised before any of these applications can be submitted. T&Cs aren’t something you can draft while waiting for permit approval — they’re a prerequisite. For most brands, getting T&Cs right is the actual bottleneck, not the permit application itself.
Trevor Services handles compliance as part of every campaign build, precisely because these timelines interact with everything else — creative approvals, retail negotiations, media bookings. When compliance runs in parallel with the rest of the planning, it doesn’t slow anything down. When it’s left until the end, it delays launches.
If you’re planning a promotion and aren’t sure what’s required, we’re happy to walk through the specifics. It’s one of those things that’s much simpler to sort out early than to fix later.
