Contest Bot 2.0: giveaways in channels

You decided to treat your subscribers to a prize, and now you spend three hours counting comments and trying to pick a winner so that nobody feels cheated. Contest Bot 2.0 takes that chore off your hands. You set up a giveaway in your channel, and the bot handles the random draw.

In its profile it is called a bot for giveaways, gifts and prize drops, and it is positioned as the second version of an older contest bot.

Three commands are all you need

The menu is short, and that is a plus. You will not have to learn dozens of sections.

• /start opens the main menu.
• /giveaway starts the creation of a new giveaway.
• /my lists your giveaways so you can return to them later.

The bot is built for giveaways in Telegram channels. You set the conditions when you create one, and counting entries and drawing the winner are left to the bot. 🍀

Giveaway or contest: there is a difference

People mix up the two words. In a giveaway the winner is picked at random from those who met simple conditions, like pressing a participation button. In a contest the winner is chosen by criteria: the best comment, the funniest photo, the fastest entry.

This bot is made for the first kind. If you need to judge entries, you will have to do that by hand, and the bot can cover the technical side.

What it costs and where the ads come from

The bot is free. The free tier comes with conditions: the giveaway admin has to subscribe to a few channels to use it. Participants do not have to follow those channels.

If ads bother you, there is a paid version without them. Access costs 99 Telegram Stars. Stars are bought inside Telegram itself, so no separate payment service is involved. ⭐

Running your first giveaway

1. Start the bot and send /giveaway.
2. Follow the prompts. The bot asks which channel the giveaway will run in.
3. Set the conditions and the post text so participants understand the rules at once.
4. Publish the giveaway and wait for the deadline.
5. Check the result in your /my list and announce the winner.

The bot must be an admin in the channel so that it can publish the post. Grant only the rights it needs and nothing more.

Keeping your audience's trust

A giveaway works as long as people believe it is fair. A few habits help a lot:

• Clear rules. Say what to do, when the results come out and what the winner gets.
• A real prize. Promise only what you can deliver. A gift that never arrives hurts your name more than no giveaway at all.
• Public results. Announce the winner openly and contact them yourself.
• No prepayments. A genuine giveaway never asks the winner to pay for shipping or a fee.

If you are the one entering

If you take part rather than run the contest, keep scammers in mind. A message saying you won, from a stranger's account, asking you to follow a link or enter card details, should be ignored. 🔒

Entering a giveaway never requires passwords or codes from text messages. Check that the results are posted in the same channel where the giveaway took place.

Who gets the most out of it

Small author channels, shops and bloggers who want a simple way to give prizes away without spreadsheets. For complex setups with judged entries and many conditions, a different tool will fit better.