How to Run a Quiz Night Fundraiser for Your Club (UK Guide)

A quiz night is still one of the most reliable fundraisers a UK grassroots club can run: low cost, easy to organise, and genuinely good fun. The format that raises the most is simple — charge per team on the door, sell a raffle in the interval, and run an online prize draw alongside the night so the people who can't make it can still chip in. Play Fund Win is the simplest way to do that last part: it's free to set up, live in about ten minutes, your club keeps the majority of what's raised, and we only take a small percentage of the total.

Why quiz nights work so well for clubs

Three reasons. They cost almost nothing to put on — a room you already have, a volunteer with a laptop and some printed answer sheets. They bring people into the clubhouse, which means bar takings as well as entry fees. And they're social, so parents, players, grandparents and neighbours all come, widening your supporter base well beyond the people who turn up on a Saturday morning.

The honest limitation is scale. A quiz night raises what the room can hold. That's why the clubs that do best treat the quiz as the hub and bolt a few extra income lines onto it, rather than relying on ticket money alone.

Setting it up: the practical bits

• Pick your date carefully. Midweek evenings and off-season months work well — there's less competing with fixtures. Avoid half-term and the week before Christmas.
• Charge per team, not per head. Teams of four to six, one price. It's simpler on the door and it encourages people to fill their table.
• Set a realistic capacity. Count your tables, work out how many teams fit comfortably, and sell to that number.
• Find a quizmaster, not just a host. Someone who can keep pace, handle a disputed answer and stop it overrunning. This matters more than the questions.
• Eight rounds of ten is plenty. Mix general knowledge, music, pictures, sport and a local round, and keep it under two hours including the break.
• Sort food simply. Pie and peas, a curry, or bring-your-own snacks. Don't let catering become the job that puts volunteers off doing it again.

The money: where a quiz night actually makes it

Entry fees are the floor, not the ceiling. Add these and the same night raises considerably more:

• A raffle in the interval. Prizes donated by local businesses and club families. This is usually the single biggest add-on.
• A "beat the quizmaster" or joker round. A small extra buy-in per team for a bonus-points round or a sealed-envelope question.
• The bar. If you run your own bar, the quiz is as much a bar night as a fundraiser.
• An online prize draw running alongside. Share the link with your whole membership a fortnight before, announce the winner on the night, and let people enter from home. This is where clubs usually find the extra few hundred pounds, because it isn't capped by the size of your room.

The rules: what's legal and what needs checking

A quiz itself is a game of skill, so it isn't gambling and doesn't need a gambling licence. Charging an entry fee and awarding a prize for the winning team is fine.

Add a raffle and you're running a lottery, regulated under the Gambling Act 2005. Most club raffles held at an event like a quiz night fall under the rules for an incidental lottery at a non-commercial event, which needs no licence or registration — but only if you stick to the conditions. In broad terms: tickets must be sold only at the event itself, the result announced while the event is still going on, no rollover, and only limited amounts deducted from the proceeds for prizes and running costs. The Gambling Commission publishes the current limits, so check them before you print tickets.

If you want to sell tickets before the night, online, or to people who aren't attending, that's no longer an incidental lottery. It's either a society lottery — which normally means registering with your local licensing authority — or a free-entry prize draw. Both are workable; they just need setting up properly. The straightforward route is a compliant platform that handles the structure, terms, age checks and records for you, rather than a spreadsheet and a payment link. Online draws are 18+, and be plain about where the money goes: what proportion the club keeps, and what the prize is.

Promoting it so the room actually fills

Most quiz nights underperform because they were announced once in a WhatsApp group and never mentioned again. Give yourself three to four weeks instead: post the date as soon as it's fixed, ask each team or age group to fill one table, send reminders at two weeks and three days, and name the local businesses who donated raffle prizes — they'll share it with their own followers. Put the online draw link in every one of those messages.

After the night

Announce the total raised and what it's going towards, publicly, within a couple of days. Thank your prize donors by name. Write down what worked and what didn't while it's fresh — the room, the price, the rounds that fell flat. The second quiz night is always easier than the first, and the clubs that make real money from quizzes run three or four a year rather than one.

If you'd like the online draw part sorted before your next quiz night, you can set one up free in about ten minutes at playfundwin.com.