Best of the Best (BOTB) UK Review 2026: The Original Skill Car Competition Explained

Best of the Best — known universally as BOTB — has been running since 1999 and is the oldest car competition brand in the UK. It is also listed on the London Stock Exchange, which makes it one of the very few competition companies in the country with publicly audited accounts. That transparency is one of its biggest selling points.

But BOTB is fundamentally different from every other competition site in this guide. It is not a raffle.

How Spot the Ball Works

Every BOTB competition uses a Spot the Ball format. Players are shown a photograph of a football match with the ball digitally removed. You place a pin where you believe the centre of the ball should be. A panel of judges independently decides the correct position of the ball — and the entry closest to that position wins.

This means skill and judgement play a genuine role. You cannot simply buy more tickets to improve your odds in the same way you can on a raffle site. Experience with the format helps — BOTB even offers a free practice mode.

What It Costs

BOTB ticket prices are remarkably low:

• Entry for used sports cars: from 4p
• Entry for new cars (e.g. Mini Cooper Sport): around 95p
• Entry for supercars (e.g. Lamborghini): around £6.15

BOTB also offers a BOTB Pass subscription from £9.99 per month, giving access to over 21 subscriber-only competitions monthly. Weekly competitions close at midnight Sunday, with winners announced every Tuesday.

The Prizes

BOTB focuses almost entirely on cars — from used sports cars to brand-new supercars worth over £150,000. Every competition lists a cash alternative so you always know the exact monetary value on offer. There is also a separate cash competition running in Summer 2026 with a £250,000 prize.

How Does This Compare to Value Ratio Sites?

The Value Ratio framework we use at Competition Showroom (prize value divided by potential ticket revenue) does not apply cleanly to BOTB, because the outcome is skill-based rather than random. Your personal expected value depends on how accurately you can judge ball position relative to other entrants — something no formula can capture.

What we can say: for low-cost entries where you back your own judgement, BOTB offers a genuinely different and often cheaper per-entry route to winning a supercar compared to traditional raffle sites.

Verdict: Is BOTB Worth Entering in 2026?

BOTB is legitimate, transparent (publicly listed with audited accounts), and uniquely skill-based. If you enjoy the challenge of Spot the Ball and want to win a car for as little as 4p per entry, it is worth trying — especially with the free practice mode available before you spend a penny.

Just do not treat it like a raffle. Volume of entries matters less than accuracy of placement. Use the practice tool, study the format, and enter competitions where the prize-to-entry-cost ratio excites you.

Browse all live car competitions on Competition Showroom