How to run a Strictly or Bake Off sweepstake

Strictly Come Dancing and The Great British Bake Off are made for an office sweepstake. The field is small, someone leaves every week, and there's a proper final. Everyone has a reason to watch on Saturday night and something to talk about on Monday morning.

Setting it up

Strictly Come Dancing is a featured event, so the quickest route is New competition → Featured events → Strictly Come Dancing. All the couples are added for you, named "Celebrity & Pro", and the format is set for you.

The Great British Bake Off is a featured event too: New competition → Featured events → The Great British Bake Off 2026. All 12 bakers are added for you and, same as Strictly, we update the results after each episode.

The Celebrity Traitors is a featured event as well: New competition → Featured events → The Celebrity Traitors 2026. All 21 celebrities are added for you, results are labelled by episode ("Episode 1", "Episode 2"), and we update them after every episode. The results emails are spoiler-safe: the subject line never names anyone, and the names sit below a spoiler warning. See the Celebrity Traitors sweepstake page for the cast and a printable sheet.

Any other show — use New competition → Something else, choose Other as the sport and type the show's name, pick Weekly elimination (TV show) as the format, and give it a name like "Office Love Island 2026". Then go to the competitors tab and add the contestants. Paste field is quickest: one name per line.

If you want to use seeds, the bookmakers' odds are a good guide — favourite gets 1. They're optional, but they stop one person being dealt the three favourites.

How many contestants each?

Strictly usually has 15 couples and Bake Off 12 bakers. With a group of five, everyone gets three couples. With 12 people and 15 couples, everyone gets one and three people get a second. That's fine, and the pots keep it fair — here's how.

If you've got more people than contestants, you'll need to split into two sweepstakes, or pair people up and enter each pair as one member.

Do the draw before the first exit

Once someone has left the show, they're left out of the draw by default. Schedule the draw for the week of the launch show — a Friday lunchtime draw on the big screen goes down well. Switch on Live page link first, then schedule it on the Draw tab and everyone gets an invitation.

After each results show

For Strictly Come Dancing, Bake Off and The Celebrity Traitors, we do it for you: we record who left once, after each results show or episode, and every linked sweepstake is updated and everyone holding them is emailed. You'll see "We update the results for you after every show" on the Results tab, with a switch if you'd rather do it yourself.

For other shows, it's over to you, and it takes about thirty seconds:

1. Open the Results tab. The Week card shows everyone still in.
2. Tick whoever left. If two go in the same week, tick both. You can rename the week, say "Musicals week".
3. Press Mark as left the show and confirm. The members holding them are emailed.

Picked the wrong one? Undo last week puts that week back without sending anything. On Strictly, the results show is on Sunday night. On Bake Off, it's the end of each episode.

How the points work

You score one point for every contestant yours outlasts, and the winner gets a bonus on top (5 points unless you change it). With 15 couples, the first out scores 0 and the winner scores 14 + 5 = 19. Contestants who leave in the same week score the same. Your score is the total across all your contestants. You can change both numbers with Points per round.

Final night

When four or fewer are left, the Final night card appears. Pick the winner and press Crown the winner. Everyone else in the final becomes a joint runner-up, unless you use Rank the runners-up to put them in order. The winning members are emailed and the leaderboard shows the final order.

A few things people ask

Someone's withdrawn injured. Tick them in the week they left, the same as an elimination.

Can people watch along? Yes — share the public page link and everyone can see who holds whom and who's still dancing.