Konkurs Bot: a giveaway in five minutes

A giveaway is still one of the fastest ways to wake up a channel and bring in new subscribers. Doing it by hand, though, means collecting entries, checking subscriptions and picking a winner in a way your audience may not trust. Konkurs Bot handles all of that right inside Telegram. 🍀

It has been around the Russian-speaking market for a long time: started more than 420,000 times, with about 66,000 people using it each month. The project has a news channel, a support chat and already a second version of the bot. The interface is in Russian.

Pick a format

• Giveaway (/giveaway). The classic: a post with a join button, conditions like subscribing to channels, and an automatic winner draw at the set time.
• Lottery (/lottery). A ticket-based format where participants try their luck.
• Fast click (/fastclick). A speed contest where the quickest reaction wins. Great for lively channels where followers are online.

Your own contests live under /my, and /top shows popular giveaways from other channels. That works both as a showcase for players and a source of ideas for organizers. 🎁

Launching one step by step

1. Make the bot an admin in the channel hosting the giveaway, so it can post and check subscriptions.
2. Create a contest with /giveaway, then set the prize, number of winners and end time.
3. Add conditions. Usually that means subscribing to one or more channels. You can also add extra buttons with links, for example to your video channel.
4. Publish the post. People tap the button, and the bot verifies the conditions itself.
5. Wait for results. At the set time the bot picks winners at random and posts the outcome.

Contests people actually enjoy

The rules are simple. The prize should appeal to your audience specifically, and the conditions should fit on one line. Five mandatory subscriptions scare off more people than the prize attracts.

• A clear deadline. A week usually beats a month, since interest does not have time to fade.
• A participant cap. You can show the limit right on the button, which adds urgency.
• Public results. Show how the winner was picked and contact them openly. That is your best defense against accusations of a rigged draw.
• Post-giveaway unsubscribes. Some prize hunters leave right after the results. That is normal, so judge success by who is still there a month later.

Notes for hosts and players

If you run a giveaway in Russia and the prize is worth more than 4,000 rubles, the winner owes 35% tax on the amount above that, as with any promotional prize. Fair hosts mention this in the rules. 📋

Participants should know the most common scam: after the draw, a fake account messages the winner and asks them to pay for shipping or a fee. A real organizer never asks for money to hand over a prize. ⚠️

Check that it is really the channel admin writing to you, and never follow outside links to claim a win.