Skill-Testing Questions for Canadian Giveaways: Rules + 25 Examples

If you've run or entered a Canadian contest, you've likely seen a line like "must correctly answer a mathematical skill-testing question without mechanical or other aid." It looks like boilerplate. It isn't. In Canada, that question is often the one thing standing between a legitimate giveaway and something the Criminal Code treats as an illegal lottery, regardless of whether the prize was free to enter for.

This page covers why the requirement exists, what actually makes a skill-testing question valid, 25 examples you can use or adapt, how to run the step on a Facebook giveaway without slowing your winner announcement down, and what's changed recently for giveaways open to Quebec residents.

This is general information to help you understand the landscape, not legal advice. For a contest with real money or brand risk on the line, have a Canadian lawyer review your rules, and make sure your published terms cover everything a Canadian entrant would expect to see; our guide on whether you need rules for a Facebook giveaway is a good starting checklist.

Why Canada Treats This Differently From Other Countries

In the US or UK, a free "comment to enter, winner picked at random" giveaway is generally fine on its own, provided you follow each platform's rules and any local advertising law. Canada adds an extra condition most page owners don't expect: sections 197 to 206 of the federal Criminal Code broadly prohibit for-profit games of chance, with specific exceptions for licensed provincial lotteries, registered charitable gaming, and casinos.

A promotional contest avoids being swept into that prohibition only if it includes a genuine element of skill, on top of not requiring payment or anything else of value to enter. Removing the "chance" label isn't optional decoration; it's the legal mechanism that keeps a brand's giveaway out of the same bucket as an unlicensed lottery. That's true even for giveaways with "no purchase necessary," because the purchase requirement and the chance requirement are two separate problems under Canadian law, not one.

The skill-testing question is the simplest, most court-tested way to add that skill element without turning the whole contest into a quiz. It doesn't need to be hard. It needs to be a real test that the entrant has to pass before they're confirmed as the winner.

What Makes a Skill-Testing Question Legally Valid

A skill-testing question that's too easy, or answered with help, doesn't do its job. Based on how Canadian courts and contest lawyers have treated the requirement, a valid one generally needs to meet all of the following:

• A genuine mathematical test, not a trivia question. Courts have specifically accepted arithmetic questions as a skill test; a general-knowledge question is a much shakier substitute, since "skill" in this context means the kind of mental effort a pure guess can't replicate.
• At least three operations. A single-step sum like "2 + 2" has been treated as too simple to count as a real skill test. The accepted pattern uses multiple operations in a fixed order, such as (16 × 5) − (12 ÷ 4), which follows standard order of operations (BEDMAS/PEMDAS).
• No outside help. The entrant must answer unaided, meaning no calculator, no searching, and no one else supplying the answer for them. In practice this is rarely policed for small prizes, but it matters for anything high-value.
• A correct answer before the prize is confirmed. The skill step isn't a formality. If the selected entrant answers incorrectly, the prize can legitimately be withheld and the draw moved to the next person, which has happened in real, publicized cases.
• Asked at the right moment. The question goes to the potential winner after they're selected, not to every entrant up front. Asking everyone the same question before the draw defeats the purpose, since the selection itself still has to be random or skill-based from the full entry pool.
• Applied even to foreign-run contests. If a contest is organized or hosted outside Canada but open to Canadian entrants, the Canadian winner still needs to pass a skill-testing question to receive the prize.

25 Skill-Testing Question Examples

These follow the three-or-more-operation pattern and standard order of operations, grouped by difficulty so you can match the question to your prize value. Swap the numbers if you want a unique set for every giveaway, but keep each one to at least three operations.

Straightforward (everyday giveaways, small prizes)

1. (6 × 4) − (10 ÷ 2) = ?
2. (3 + 9) × 2 − 5 = ?
3. (20 ÷ 4) + (3 × 6) = ?
4. (7 × 3) − (9 ÷ 3) = ?
5. (15 − 5) × 2 + 4 = ?
6. (8 × 2) + (12 ÷ 4) = ?
7. (10 + 10) ÷ 4 × 3 = ?
8. (5 × 5) − (15 ÷ 3) = ?

Moderate (mid-value prizes)

1. (16 × 5) − (12 ÷ 4) = ?
2. (9 × 3) + (24 ÷ 6) − 2 = ?
3. (14 − 4) × 3 ÷ 2 = ?
4. (7 + 8) × 2 − (10 ÷ 5) = ?
5. (6 × 6) ÷ 4 + 9 = ?
6. (18 ÷ 3) × 4 − 7 = ?
7. (11 × 2) + (30 ÷ 5) − 3 = ?
8. (25 − 10) × 2 ÷ 5 = ?
9. (4 × 9) − (18 ÷ 3) + 1 = ?

Higher difficulty (flagship or high-value prizes)

1. (12 × 3) − (8 × 2) + (6 ÷ 2) = ?
2. (45 ÷ 5) × 2 − (9 + 3) = ?
3. (7 × 7) − (24 ÷ 4) + 5 = ?
4. (10 + 15) × 2 ÷ 5 − 1 = ?
5. (6 × 8) ÷ 4 + (9 − 3) = ?
6. (13 × 2) + (16 ÷ 4) − 6 = ?
7. (9 × 9) − (30 ÷ 5) + 2 = ?
8. (14 + 6) × 3 ÷ 4 − 1 = ?

Keep a written record of which question you sent to which entrant and the answer they gave. If a winner is ever challenged, that record is your proof the step was actually completed, not just printed in your rules. Building the skill-testing requirement into your formal terms from the start is easier than adding it after the fact; the giveaway rules generator has a field for exactly this.

How to Run the Skill-Testing Step on a Facebook Giveaway

The skill-testing question doesn't change how you draw the winner; it changes what happens right after. A typical flow looks like this:

1. Run your random draw as normal. Use how to pick a winner on Facebook to select your winner and at least one or two backups from the valid comment entries.
2. Message the selected entrant privately before announcing anything publicly. Send the skill-testing question by direct message, with a clear deadline to respond, such as 24 or 48 hours.
3. Record the answer and check it. If it's correct, you can move to announcing the winner. If it's wrong, or they never reply by the deadline, move to your next backup and repeat the same step.
4. Only then make the public announcement. Confirming the skill step before announcing avoids the awkward situation of publicly naming a winner and then having to walk it back.
5. Keep the message thread. It's your evidence that the step happened, which matters far more than most page owners expect if a runner-up ever asks why they didn't win.

This fits naturally alongside the rest of your draw process. If your giveaway is drawing more than one winner, running the skill-testing step for each selected entrant before any public announcement keeps the whole process consistent, which our guide to picking multiple winners in a single pass covers in more detail.

Does a Free Giveaway Still Need One?

Yes, and this is the part most page owners get backwards. "No purchase necessary" solves the consideration problem, not the chance problem. A giveaway that's completely free to enter, with a winner chosen purely at random, can still meet the legal definition of a lottery in Canada if there's no skill involved anywhere in the process. The skill-testing question is what adds that missing ingredient, independent of whether money ever changed hands.

This is also why Canadian contest rules nearly always use the word "contest" rather than "giveaway" or "sweepstakes" in their formal terms, since those words carry different legal weight depending on jurisdiction. If you want the fuller picture of how these terms differ and which one actually describes what you're running, our guide to contest vs. sweepstakes vs. giveaway vs. lottery breaks down the distinction in plain language.

What Changed in Quebec

For years, any contest open to Quebec residents had extra provincial requirements on top of the federal rules: registering the contest with the Régie des alcools, des courses et des jeux (RACJ), paying a fee tied to the prize value, filing the official rules and ads for approval, and submitting a winners' report once the contest closed.

That changed on October 27, 2023, when Quebec repealed the contest provisions of its lotteries and publicity contests legislation. Contests open to Quebec residents no longer need to be registered with the RACJ, and the fee, filing, and winners'-report requirements no longer apply to new contests. Contests that were already registered before that date remain under the old regime for their remaining life, including the final winners' report.

Two things haven't changed. First, federal law, including the Criminal Code skill-testing requirement covered above and the Competition Act's rules against misleading promotional contest claims, still applies to Quebec the same as every other province. Second, Quebec's French-language requirements under its Charter of the French Language are a separate set of rules from the old contest-registration regime, and they weren't repealed. Businesses serving or advertising to Quebec consumers, including through Facebook, are expected to be able to do so in French, and standard-form consumer terms, which contest rules often resemble, are generally required to be provided in French at the outset. If your giveaway targets Quebec, treat the language question and the old registration question as two separate issues, not one.

Common Mistakes

Treating "no purchase necessary" as the whole answer. It solves the consideration problem but does nothing for the chance problem, which is what the skill-testing question is actually for.

Using a one-step question. "What is 5 + 3?" has been treated by courts as too simple to count as a genuine skill test. Keep to three or more operations.

Asking the question to every entrant instead of the selected winner. The skill step applies to the person who was already chosen, not to the whole entry pool before the draw.

Letting someone help the entrant answer. If assistance is visible or admitted, the "without mechanical or other aid" condition hasn't actually been met, which undermines the legal reason the question exists at all.

Assuming Quebec's old rules still apply. The registration, fee, and filing requirements through the RACJ ended for new contests on October 27, 2023. Running an outdated Quebec-specific process wastes time without adding any legal protection.

The bottom line

A skill-testing question isn't legal theatre in Canada, it's the specific mechanism that keeps a random-draw giveaway from being classified as an illegal lottery, whether or not the giveaway was free to enter. Use a genuine multi-step math question, ask it only of the selected winner before you announce anything publicly, record the answer, and move to a backup if it isn't answered correctly in time. If your giveaway reaches Quebec, remember the provincial contest-registration regime ended in October 2023, but federal rules and Quebec's French-language requirements are separate issues that still apply.