Prizes are awarded by chance
WinHive prizes are awarded in accordance with the laws of chance using the draw or prize allocation mechanism described on this page and in the significant conditions for the relevant competition.
One pool for every valid entry
Paid and valid free postal entries use the same ticket format. Before the draw, all valid ticket numbers are sorted into one fixed manifest. The selection calculation does not receive the entry route, customer spend or account balance.
Significant conditions are locked
When a competition is activated, WinHive stores a snapshot of its significant conditions and a SHA-256 hash. Once entries exist, material prize, price, limit and timing conditions cannot simply be edited away. This preserves evidence of the conditions attached to the draw.
Commit before the result
Before tickets are issued, the system creates a secret 256-bit random seed using PHP's cryptographically secure random_bytes function and stores its SHA-256 commitment. The commitment does not reveal the seed, but the revealed seed can later be checked against it.
Close, reconcile, then draw
The draw control remains unavailable until the competition has closed, its scheduled draw time has arrived and timely postal entries have been processed. WinHive then records the ordered valid-ticket manifest and its SHA-256 pool hash.
HiveProof LIVE presentation
For manual draws presented through HiveProof LIVE, the verified winning entry is selected and locked before the ten-minute public countdown begins. The public animation, music, bees and ticket effects are presentation only and cannot change the locked result. WinHive stores a separate result commitment before the presentation starts and does not send the winning ticket to the viewer's browser until the reveal time. The normal winner record, publication and result emails are also held until that reveal so they cannot spoil the LIVE draw.
How the winning ticket is selected
The revealed seed, pool hash, competition ID and a nonce are hashed with SHA-256. A 48-bit value from the digest is accepted only inside an even multiple of the ticket count, avoiding the bias that simple modulo selection can introduce. The accepted value maps to one position in the fixed manifest.
Public draw record
After the result is published, the draw record can show the seed commitment, revealed seed, pool hash, digest, nonce, eligible-ticket count and winning ticket without exposing entrants' personal details. That evidence allows the recorded calculation to be checked.
Instant wins
Instant-win positions are generated and committed before tickets are issued and use the same numerical ticket positions for paid and postal entrants. The mechanism and a 100-entry sample were independently technically reviewed by Ali Abdelkader on 9 August 2026. Completed live promotions retain a separate audit export for independent post-promotion verification.
Read the independent instant-win fairness review and evidence process.
Administrative controls
WinHive keeps audit events, restricts repeat draws, records invalidation reasons and publishes a complaints process. Draw evidence can also be provided to an independent professional, payment provider or relevant authority when required.
