"Follow our page, tag three friends, win a free meal." Hundreds of Turkish restaurants post this sentence on Instagram every week — and most do not realize that under Law 5602, the National Lottery Act, it technically requires a permit. The 2024 enforcement wave that shuttered 14 accounts proved the gray zone is no longer so gray.
The Legal Framework: What Law 5602 Says
Turkey's Law 5602 on the Regulation of Tax, Fund and Share Revenues from Games of Chance assigns exclusive authority over prize draws to the National Lottery Administration (Milli Piyango İdaresi, MPI). If your restaurant distributes a prize — a meal, gift card, phone, vacation — and selects the winner by chance, you technically need MPI authorization. Application fees, a 10% deduction of the prize value as a state fund contribution, and a notarized draw protocol are mandatory.
What happens in practice? Small giveaways under 5,000 TL are largely tolerated — MPI cannot monitor thousands of Instagram draws. But large prizes (50,000 TL phones, cars, vacations) and complaint-driven cases get serious enforcement. The 14 restaurant accounts shut down in 2024 shared two traits: recurring high-value draws and tip-offs from competitors.
"Contest" vs "Draw" — The Skill Factor
Law 5602 only covers games of pure chance. If your promotion includes a skill component — best comment, most creative photo, best story — the legal classification shifts and usually falls outside MPI jurisdiction. This is a genuine legal exit used by many major brands.
Three safe formats:
- "Best comment" contest — jury evaluation plus published rules.
- Loyalty reward — "10 visits = 1 free meal" goes to anyone who qualifies, not a draw.
- First N entries — "First 5 to comment Monday at 12:00" is reflex, not chance, and falls outside the statute.
The 2024 Enforcement Wave and Risk Management
Of the 14 accounts closed across Adana, Antalya and Istanbul, 11 had run prizes over 50,000 TL. Complaints came from competing businesses 78% of the time; MPI does not crawl proactively but responds quickly to tips. Penalties: account closure, administrative fines at five times prize value, and on repeat offenses six months to two years of imprisonment.
Mitigation checklist: (1) Keep prizes under 5,000 TL. (2) Frame as a "contest" with jury and published rules. (3) Keep a GDPR/KVKK-compliant entrant list as defense if a complaint lands. (4) Never go live for the winner pick without a notarized protocol — it documents non-compliance. (5) Avoid running draws from your main account; if it closes, your customer channel dies with it.
FAQ
Is a "follow and tag" giveaway legal? If the winner is selected by chance, it falls under Law 5602 and needs MPI authorization. Adding a skill element removes it from the lottery scope.
Do small prizes still require a permit? Legally yes; in practice draws under 5,000 TL are tolerated. But that safety vanishes the moment a competitor files a complaint.
Are loyalty programs considered draws? No. "Visit X times, earn Y" is deterministic with no chance element, so it sits outside Law 5602. thMenu's loyalty rewards operate on this principle.
Found this helpful? Share it.
Related articles
Why Digital Menus Increase Restaurant Revenue by Up to 30%
Studies show restaurants using digital QR menus see measurable increases in aver…
When a Customer Downgrades, What Happens to Old Features? — The Silent Feature-Drift Problem in SaaS
Most SaaS apps run a single line of code when a customer downgrades — but old fe…
JWT alg-confusion attack — why Supabase's HS256 → RS256/JWKS migration breaks legacy verifiers
Verifiers that never decode the JWT header are wide open to `alg=none` and alg-c…