BOTB
27 June 2026
Anyone who's passed through a UK airport in the last two decades has probably seen BOTB without necessarily knowing the name. A gleaming supercar on a stand, a sports photo on a screen, someone deliberating over where the ball should go. That's Best of the Best — and unlike the wave of competition sites that have appeared and disappeared in recent years, BOTB has been running since 1999. That longevity alone puts it in a different category.
What Is BOTB?
BOTB is a publicly listed competition platform offering cars, cash, watches, holidays, tech and property prizes. The format that built the brand is Spot the Ball — a skill-based competition where entrants place a marker on a sports image from which the ball has been digitally removed. A panel of independent judges reviews the same image and determines the winning coordinate. Whoever places closest wins.
That skill element is what sets BOTB apart from standard prize draws. There's something to think about, a judgement to make, and the result isn't purely down to chance. Whether that changes the odds meaningfully is debatable, but it changes the experience considerably.
What Can You Win?
Three main competition formats run on the platform.
The Dream Car competition is the headline act. Porsches, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Range Rovers, Mercedes-AMGs — the kind of cars that justify the name. Most come with a cash alternative for winners who'd rather take the money.
The Midweek Car competition follows the same Spot the Ball format with prizes that tend toward the more accessible end — Teslas, hot hatches, premium SUVs — though still genuinely desirable.
Weekly Lifestyle competitions work differently. A qualifying question replaces Spot the Ball, with correct answers entering a draw for watches, holidays, motorbikes, cash and tech prizes.
Ticket prices start low depending on the competition, and subscription-style passes offer a bundle of weekly entries that can represent better value for regular players than one-off purchases. Terms around game credit expiry and cancellation are worth reading carefully before committing to a subscription — a recurring theme in the critical reviews.
Is BOTB Legitimate?
More so than almost anything else in the competition space.
Over two decades of operation, public company status, independent judging, external auditing, and a searchable archive of previous winners going back years all combine to produce a level of transparency that most competitors can't match. Winner videos, prize details and judging outcomes are all publicly available. The competitions are independently verified.
None of that guarantees a win — most entrants won't — but it does mean BOTB is operating with a degree of openness that makes the legitimacy question straightforward to answer.
What Are People Saying?
Customer feedback is broadly positive with some specific and recurring criticisms worth understanding.
On the positive side, ease of use, enjoyable competitions and fast payment of smaller cash prizes come up consistently. The winner experience generates a lot of the most enthusiastic reviews — BOTB calls winners directly rather than sending an email, and the reactions in the winner videos reflect what that moment actually feels like. Several reviewers mention still enjoying the platform having never won a major prize, which says something about the experience beyond the outcome.
The negative reviews split into two categories. The first — spending money without winning — is an inherent feature of any competition rather than a flaw specific to BOTB. The second is more instructive: game credit expiry, subscription cancellation difficulties, and the Spot the Ball interface feeling less smooth than it could be. These are practical complaints from real users and represent fair areas for improvement.
Judging process complaints appear occasionally too. Spot the Ball outcomes can feel subjective, and a marker placed close to the winning coordinate without winning is naturally frustrating. The process is judged, recorded and audited, so while people may disagree with a result, the methodology is at least visible and documented.
What Works Well
The credibility is the standout. Past winners are searchable. Judging outcomes are published. External verification is used. The company is publicly listed. In an industry where trust is earned slowly and lost quickly, that foundation is genuinely valuable.
The skill element makes the experience more engaging than a standard raffle. Studying the players' body positions, eyelines and movement in a sports photo gives entrants something to think about. Right or wrong, it's more involving than clicking a random number.
Ticket prices are accessible, often lower than a coffee for entry into a competition for a car worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. The winner experience — the call, the reaction, the moment of realisation — is well documented and clearly something BOTB takes seriously as part of what makes the platform worth using.
Things to Keep in Mind
The prizes are big because the odds are hard. That's not a criticism — it's how competitions work — but it's important to hold clearly in mind before spending anything. A budget set before entering and treated as fixed is the most effective protection against gradually spending more than intended. Low individual ticket prices make incremental overspending easy to miss until the total is already significant.
Subscription and game credit terms are worth understanding in full before signing up. Some of the most specific complaints on review platforms relate to entrants not fully understanding how these work until something went wrong. Reading those terms first removes that risk.
BOTB operates as a skill competition rather than a lottery, which places it outside the Gambling Commission's regulatory framework — a legal distinction rather than a red flag, but one worth understanding going in.
Who Is BOTB Best For?
Car enthusiasts who want something more interactive than a standard prize draw. People who enjoy competitions and like the idea of at least some skill being involved. Anyone looking for a weekly flutter that feels engaging rather than purely passive.
It's not suited to anyone approaching it as a financial strategy. The happiest regular players, based on the reviews, are those who enjoy the process — following previous winners, studying the image, entering within a set budget — rather than those fixated on the outcome.
The Bottom Line
BOTB is the most established and credible competition platform in the UK market. Twenty-five years of operation, public company status, independent verification, published judging outcomes and a long record of documented winners put it in a category of its own relative to most of what the online competition space has to offer.
The prizes are genuinely exciting, the Spot the Ball format makes it more engaging than a raffle, and the entry costs are low enough to make participation accessible. The subscription terms and game credit policies are worth reading carefully, and realistic expectations about the odds are essential.
Treat it as entertainment, set a budget before playing, and go in for the experience rather than the expectation. On those terms, BOTB is easy to recommend.
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