BOTB vs Dream Car Giveaways vs Omaze: Which Is Actually Worth Your Money?

Comparing BOTB, Dream Car Giveaways and Omaze to see which UK car competition site actually offers the best odds, transparency and value for money.

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BOTB, Dream Car Giveaways and Omaze logos compared side by side for UK car competition sites

BOTB vs Dream Car Giveaways vs Omaze

You've seen the ads. A Lamborghini parked on a driveway, a countdown clock ticking down, a ticket price that feels almost too small next to the car on offer. Three names dominate that space in the UK right now — BOTB, Dream Car Giveaways, and Omaze — and they all promise roughly the same thing: a shot at a dream car for the price of a takeaway. But which one actually gives you the best odds, the most transparency, and the best chance your money isn't just funding someone else's marketing budget?

BOTB, Dream Car Giveaways and Omaze at a Glance

BOTB — UK's longest-running car competition site, skill-question entry, instant-win side games, tickets typically under £3
Dream Car Giveaways — buys every car outright before running the competition, weekly draws, tickets from around £1-£5 depending on the car
Omaze — US-founded, UK-operational, charity-partnered draws, higher-value prize bundles (house-plus-car packages), tickets typically £10-£25
All three run legally as prize competitions or free-entry draws under UK gambling law, not lotteries
Odds and entry numbers are published for all three, though how easy that information is to actually find varies a lot between them

How Do These Car Competition Sites Actually Work?

Despite the different branding, all three follow roughly the same mechanical process, just with different flourishes:

The company acquires the prize. BOTB and Dream Car Giveaways typically buy the car outright before the competition opens, so the prize exists regardless of ticket sales. Omaze's model varies by campaign, sometimes centred on a bundled prize package tied to a charity partner.
Tickets go on sale with a published maximum. Each site sets (and is legally required to disclose) a maximum number of entries, which is what actually determines your real odds, not the glossy car photos.
Entrants answer a skill question or opt for a free postal entry. This is the legal mechanism that keeps these as prize competitions rather than lotteries under UK law, since a pure chance-based paid draw would fall under different, stricter gambling regulation.
A winner is drawn once the competition closes or sells out, verified, and (usually) filmed for the inevitable reaction video that goes straight onto the company's social channels.

Who Runs Each Company?

BOTB has been operating since 1999 and is one of the oldest names in this space, which counts for something in an industry where trust is the whole product. Dream Car Giveaways is a newer, privately-run UK operation that has leaned heavily on transparency messaging, publishing winner details and odds prominently — we've covered who's actually behind Dream Car Giveaways in a full review if you want the deeper dive. Omaze began in the US and expanded into the UK market by partnering directly with registered charities, which is a meaningfully different structure from the other two, since a portion of every ticket is explicitly earmarked for the charity partner rather than solely funding the prize and operating costs.

Which One Has the Best Odds?

This is genuinely the question that matters most, and it's also the one most people never actually check before buying a ticket. Odds depend entirely on how many tickets a competition sells relative to its maximum, not on the brand name attached to it — a smaller, less famous competition with a lower entry cap can easily offer better odds than a heavily-advertised one that sells out its maximum every time. We've broken down the actual odds of winning a Dream Car Giveaways competition elsewhere, and the short version applies across all three sites: always check the specific competition's published maximum entries before assuming "popular" means "good odds," because it usually means the opposite.

Which One Is Most Transparent?

Transparency is where the three genuinely start to separate. Dream Car Giveaways and BOTB both publish odds and past winner information relatively prominently, which is exactly what you'd want to see before handing over card details. Omaze's charity-tied structure adds a layer of trust for a different reason — the charity partnership itself gets audited independently of the giveaway, which gives you a second party with a direct incentive to keep things honest. None of the three are hiding anything illegal (all three operate as legitimate, legally-structured prize competitions), but if published odds and winner transparency are your priority, BOTB and Dream Car Giveaways currently make that information easier to find without digging.

Why This Comparison Matters More Than the Marketing Suggests

It's easy to assume all three sites are basically interchangeable, just with different logos slapped on similar adverts, and that assumption is exactly what lets the weaker options coast on brand recognition alone. The reality is that the actual value of a ticket depends far more on a specific competition's live entry numbers than on which company is running it. A well-run, less-advertised competition from any of the three can genuinely offer better value than a heavily-marketed one that's already sold most of its available tickets by the time you see the ad. That's the single most important thing to internalise before comparing brand reputations: you're not really choosing between BOTB, Dream Car Giveaways and Omaze as companies, you're choosing between individual competitions, and the company name is only a rough proxy for how trustworthy that specific competition is likely to be.

How Each Company Handles Losing Entries

This is a detail that gets glossed over in most comparisons but genuinely affects how a ticket "feels" once you've bought it. BOTB's model layers in instant-win side games alongside the main draw, so a losing main entry can still return something small immediately, which softens the psychological sting of not winning the headline prize. Dream Car Giveaways runs a more straightforward single-draw structure without the instant-win layer, which keeps things simple but means every non-winning ticket is a clean loss with nothing else attached. Omaze's charity framing changes the emotional accounting entirely — a losing ticket still funded a cause you (hopefully) actually support, which is a genuinely different value proposition even at a higher price point, and it's worth being honest with yourself about whether that framing changes how you'd feel about not winning.

What to Actually Check Before You Buy a Ticket

Regardless of which of the three you're leaning towards, there's a short checklist worth running through before entering anything: confirm the maximum entry number is published and current, check whether that number reflects tickets sold or tickets available, look up recent winners to confirm the competition has a track record of actually paying out, and read the specific terms for that competition rather than the general site terms, since details like postal-entry rules and prize substitution clauses can vary between individual draws even on the same platform. None of this takes more than a couple of minutes, and it's the difference between an informed £5 punt and blind trust in a well-produced advert.

Costs and Ticket Prices Compared

Here's where your budget actually decides the answer for you more than anything else. BOTB and Dream Car Giveaways sit at the accessible end, often letting you get involved for the price of a coffee, which naturally means more tickets sold and a bigger entry pool per car. Omaze's ticket prices run noticeably higher, but its prizes are frequently bundled (a car plus a house, for example), and a portion of that higher price is explicitly funding the charity partnership rather than only the prize pot.

The Good Stuff

All three are legally structured, legitimate UK prize competitions, not scams
Odds and entry caps are published (with varying ease of access) across all three
Genuine winners exist and are documented for all three companies
Low entry cost relative to prize value across the board

The Risks

Odds still heavily favour the house — treat every ticket as entertainment spend, not investment
Popular, heavily-advertised competitions often sell closer to their maximum entries, quietly worsening your actual odds
Omaze's higher ticket price means a smaller loss tolerance if you're buying multiple entries
Always double-check a specific competition's live entry numbers rather than relying on brand reputation alone

Our Verdict

If you're chasing the best raw odds for the lowest outlay, BOTB and Dream Car Giveaways are the stronger picks, and which of the two you prefer likely comes down to which specific car and competition is live at the time. If you like the idea of your ticket price doing double duty for a charity you actually care about, Omaze's structure is the more values-driven choice, even if the odds-per-pound don't always come out ahead. None of the three is objectively "the scam" the comment sections love to claim — they're all legitimate businesses running the same basic model with different personalities layered on top.