Setting up TitanCart Lottery

Updated Oct 17, 2026 Extensions

TitanCart Lottery turns any product into a raffle, a 50/50 pot or a free-entry sweepstakes. Tick Run as a lottery on the product, set the ticket price, the cap and the closing date, and customers buy tickets through your normal cart. When it closes, the draw runs itself from a recorded seed that can be replayed later, every entrant gets the right e-mail, and if the raffle did not reach its minimum you refund every ticket in one click, extend it or relist it. It is sold separately on the TitanCart Marketplace as a one-time purchase and works on TitanCart Lite as well as Pro.

Compliance notice. Raffles, lotteries, sweepstakes and prize draws are regulated differently in every jurisdiction. You are responsible for local compliance — licences and permits, free-entry requirements, age limits, skill-question rules and how a cash pot may be paid out. TitanCart Lottery provides the tools (skill-question gate, free-entry text, per-lottery rules); it does not make a promotion lawful anywhere. Check with a local adviser before you run one.

1. Install, license and switch on

Download the ZIP from My Account → Licenses on the marketplace, install it under Plugins → Add New Plugin → Upload Plugin and activate it.
Go to TitanCart → Extensions → Installed Extensions; under Extensions purchased from the TitanCart Marketplace, enter the license key and click Activate (see Activating a license key). Until then the Lotteries page says “Lottery is not licensed” and the product tab “License required”.
Open Growth → Lotteries and click Switch on for the store. The same switch lives in the page’s Settings as Lottery is on for the store.

2. Store-wide settings

On Growth → Lotteries, open Settings:

Storefront — Show the tickets-sold progress bar, Show the countdown, Show the raffle badge on product cards, Keep drawn lotteries visible after the draw, Guests may buy tickets (off means a customer must be signed in, which also lets them see their tickets later), and a Default rules text used whenever a lottery has none of its own.
Draws — Draw automatically at the closing time. Switch it off if you prefer to press Draw yourself, for example to draw live.
E-mails — one switch each for the winner e-mail, the no-luck e-mail to everyone else, the “did not run” e-mail when the minimum was not met, the “extended” e-mail when you move the closing date, and the Draw summary to the store admin, with its Admin email address.
Sweepstakes — Prize cap per day and Prize cap per 7 days: when a sweepstakes’ prize value exceeds either figure, the product’s Lottery tab shows a warning so you check your local limit before running it. The defaults are Pennsylvania’s ($1,000 in a day, $25,000 in 7 days); set your own. It is a warning, not a block.

3. Make a product a lottery

Open the product (an existing one, or a new product whose name and image describe the prize) and go to its Lottery tab. Tick Run as a lottery and choose the Raffle type:

Basket raffle — the product is the prize. The product’s price is the ticket price.
50/50 pot — no fixed prize: every paid ticket grows the pot, the winner takes the Winner’s share you set, and the pot updates live on the product page.
Free sweepstakes — free to enter with an e-mail address; the product price must be zero.

Then the rest of the tab:

Prize value — shown to entrants; for a sweepstakes it is compared with the prize caps in Settings and a warning appears here if it exceeds them.
Number of winners and Allow multiple wins (may one entrant win more than once).
Minimum tickets — below this at closing time the raffle does not run (§6). Ticket cap and Close early when the cap sells out. Max tickets per customer.
Bundle buttons — the quick-pick quantities offered on the product page, such as 3, 5 and 10 tickets, with live totals.
Starts and Ends — sales open and close on these dates; the countdown and the automatic draw read Ends.
Skill question and Accepted answer — an optional gate: the shopper must answer correctly before a ticket can be bought or a free entry made.
Free entry route — text explaining how to enter without buying, where your rules require a no-purchase route.
Rules / terms — this lottery’s rules, shown on the product page; blank uses the default rules text.
After it closes — Keep the product page or Hide the product.
For a sweepstakes, Ways to enter — the bonus entries on offer: creating an account, a daily check-in, subscribing to your newsletter, following your social accounts, or placing a paid order.

Save the product. Its row appears on Growth → Lotteries as Upcoming until Starts, then Live.

4. What shoppers see

On the product page the lottery block shows the ticket price, the bundle buttons, a tickets-sold progress bar with the remaining count, the countdown (“Ends in”), the prize or the live pot, the rules, and — if you set one — the skill question (“Answer correctly to enter”). Buying tickets is an ordinary add-to-cart and checkout; the per-customer maximum is enforced at add-to-cart (“You already hold the maximum number of tickets for this raffle”). Tickets are recorded only when the order is paid, never on placement, and are voided automatically if the order is cancelled or refunded.

A sweepstakes shows Enter free with an e-mail field and consent, then Other ways to enter: log in or create an account, check in daily, subscribe, follow your social accounts, or earn entries automatically with a paid order. Signed-in customers see all their tickets, entries and wins under My Account → My Raffles.

5. The draw

With Draw automatically on, the draw runs at the closing time (or when the cap sells out, if you chose that). To draw by hand, open the lottery on Growth → Lotteries and click Draw now (closes sales). Every draw starts from a randomly generated seed that is stored on the draw record; the winning tickets are derived from that seed, so Verify the draw (replay from seed) can re-run it at any time and prove the result. If you drew elsewhere — on stage, or with a third-party service — enter the winning number with Use this ticket instead.

The status becomes Drawn, the winner, no-luck and admin e-mails go out according to the switches, and the page lists the winners, entrants and Draw history. Once the prize or pot has been handed over, click Mark as paid out and leave a payout note (how and when); the status becomes Paid out.

6. When a raffle does not run

If the closing time arrives with fewer than the Minimum tickets, the raffle is not drawn: its status becomes Did not run and the “did not run” e-mail goes to every entrant. You then choose:

Refund all ticket orders — refunds every ticket order through its payment gateway in one click and voids the tickets.
Extend & reopen sales — pick a new closing date; sales reopen, existing tickets stand, and the “extended” e-mail goes out.
Relist — run it again with a fresh pool — a new run with a new closing date. The old tickets and draws are kept, voided, for the audit trail unless you tick the option to delete them.

7. Growth → Lotteries

The page lists every lottery with its product, type, status, tickets sold, pot or prize and closing date, and opens each one for entrants, tickets, draw history and the actions above. Statuses: Switched off, Upcoming, Live, Closed — awaiting draw, Drawn, Did not run, Paid out.

Troubleshooting

“Lottery is not licensed” / “License required”. Activate the key under Installed Extensions, then switch Lottery on for the store.
The Lottery tab is missing from the product editor. The extension is not active, not licensed, or not switched on for the store.
“Free sweepstakes — product price must be” zero. Set the product’s price to 0 for a sweepstakes.
Tickets sold does not move after an order. Tickets count only once the order is paid; an unpaid or pending order adds nothing.
The draw did not run at closing time. Draw automatically is off, or the minimum was not met (status Did not run). Draw by hand or use §6.
A sweepstakes will not accept entries. It is outside its Starts / Ends window, or the store switch is off. (A prize above the daily or 7-day cap only shows a warning on the Lottery tab; it does not stop entries.)