Automatic draw

Normally the draw waits for you to press the button. If being at a computer at the right moment is the hard part — the draw's at 8pm on a Saturday, you're at the event — you can hand that job to RaffleLink instead.

As the app describes it: "Let the platform run your draw for you: winners are drawn at your advertised draw time, emailed, and the results published automatically — even if you're away from a computer."

Which raffles can use it

Automatic draw is available for online-only raffles with an instant draw — the kind where RaffleLink picks the winners. If you sell paper tickets, or you've chosen a Hat or Combined Hat draw method, it isn't offered: those draws need a person with a barrel. You'll see: "Automatic draws are only available for online-only raffles with an instant draw."

Turning it on

On your raffle's Draw page, find the Automatic draw section and choose Turn on automatic draw. You'll need a draw date set.

Once it's armed, the card confirms what will happen: "This raffle will be drawn automatically on [date]. Winners are emailed and the results published about an hour later — you don't need to be online. You'll get a reminder email 24 hours before."

So the sequence is:

1. At your advertised draw time, the winners are drawn — the same audited, random draw as pressing the button.
2. About an hour later, the winners are emailed and your results are published to the raffle page.

You can preview and edit the winner email before the day, so what goes out sounds like you.

Changing your mind

You can Turn off the automatic draw any time before it runs — you'll just be reminded that "You'll need to run the draw, notify winners, and publish results yourself." RaffleLink also emails you a reminder 24 hours before ("Your raffle draws automatically soon"), which links straight to the draw so you can switch back to running it by hand.

If something isn't right, it stops — it doesn't force it

This is the important part. At the moment of the draw, RaffleLink re-runs every check it would run for a manual draw. If something's genuinely wrong — an early bird draw you haven't run, a cancellation pending, no eligible tickets — it blocks the automatic draw and emails you rather than pushing ahead. Your raffle is left untouched:

"The automatic draw could not run. The raffle is unchanged — run the draw manually, or fix the issue and try the automatic draw again."

From there you can Try again or Turn off and draw it yourself.

What your buyers see

Nothing different. Buyers only ever see the advertised draw date and, afterwards, the published results — exactly as they would if you'd drawn it by hand.