How to win a car in Australia
A new car is one of the most common big prizes going in this country, and there are more legit ways to chase one than most people realise. Some cost a few dollars and put your money towards a charity. Some cost nothing at all. The trick is knowing which comps are real, how each type works, and not falling for the fakes that pile up around anything with a car attached.
Last checked: September 2026
Two ways to win a car
Almost every genuine car giveaway in Australia is one of two things, and it helps to know which you are looking at before you hand over anything.
Paid charity lottery
You buy a ticket, the money funds a cause, and a winner is drawn from the tickets sold. These are art unions or charity lotteries, licensed and guaranteed to produce a winner. Your odds are simply your tickets against the total.
Free-entry competition
A brand, retailer or TV show gives a car away to promote itself. This is a "trade promotion" and it is usually free, or tied to a purchase you were making anyway. No ticket revenue, no cause, just marketing.
Both are perfectly legal. They are just regulated slightly differently, and the maths of winning is different, so it is worth treating them as two separate games.
Charity car lotteries
This is the same model as the big prize home draws, only the prize is a vehicle instead of a house, or a car bundled in with the house. Because they are run by registered charities under a gaming licence, there is always a winner and the draw is conducted independently.
A few operators worth knowing:
- The Deaf Lottery regularly runs cash and car draws alongside its bigger prizes, with tickets from around $2.
- Mater Lotteries has put up cars as prizes, on top of the famous Mater Prize Home.
- The RSPCA runs its own lottery that has included vehicles, funding animal welfare.
- Most prize home packages now throw a car into the deal, so entering a home draw is often a shot at a car too.
The upside of the paid route is that your money does something even when you lose, and the odds, while still long, are a known quantity. Buy through the operator's official website, never a link someone forwards you.
Free-entry competitions
These are the ones people mean when they search "win a car free entry". A business runs a promotion, gives away a car to draw attention, and lets you enter without paying. You will find them run by car dealers, fuel and grocery retailers, radio stations and breakfast TV. Some ask you to buy a qualifying product first, others just want your email and a slogan in 25 words or less.
The honest trade-off: free comps cost nothing, so there is no reason not to enter every real one you find, but the fields can be enormous and you rarely get told the odds. Treat them as a free lotto ticket. Enter, forget about it, and be pleasantly surprised if your phone rings.
How to tell a car comp is legit
The rule that never fails: a real competition never asks you to pay to claim a prize. If a "win" comes with a release fee, a delivery charge, a tax you have to pay up front, or a request for your bank login, it is a scam. Bin it. Beyond that, a genuine car comp will tick these boxes:
- A permit or licence number. Paid lotteries hold a gaming licence; free trade promotions hold a permit in the states that require one. Real operators show these numbers.
- Full terms and conditions. Draw date, closing time, number of prizes, who is eligible. Vague comps with no fine print are a red flag.
- An official website or channel. Enter through the brand or charity's own site, not a lookalike page or a random social account using their logo.
- A named promoter. You can see who is actually running it, and they are a real business or registered charity you can look up.
Be realistic about the odds
Whichever route you take, the odds of driving off in the car are long. A paid lottery splits your tickets across everyone else's. A free comp can pull tens of thousands of entries for a single car. That is not a reason to avoid them, it is a reason to keep it in perspective: spend what you would happily give to a cause or nothing at all, and never chase a loss. If you want to see how the numbers really shake out on the big draws, we broke it down.