TikTok Shop has rewritten its gambling rules at least three times since late May, banning the break formats most likened to lotteries while growing its own randomized auction product into beauty, electronics, and toys.
Story updated with background information provided to Gambling Insider by TikTok, as of Friday Sep. 25, 17:23 ET
TikTok Shop now allows random team breaks, the card-break format most often compared to a lottery, only through Surprise Sets, a randomized auction product that TikTok itself controls.
A card break is a livestream sale where buyers purchase a share of one or more boxes of trading cards before the seller opens them on camera. In a random team break, buyers pay for a spot and are randomly assigned a sports team, then receive any cards pulled for that team. Surprise Sets are TikTok Shop’s own randomized sales feature: buyers bid or pay without knowing exactly which item they will receive, with TikTok’s software determining the outcome and revealing it after the sale.
Since April, TikTok has expanded Surprise Sets from trading cards to general merchandise. In September, it replaced numeric limits on how prize values are distributed across a set with looser wording.
The changes appear in successive versions of TikTok Shop’s US Gambling Policy, Collectibles Policy, and LIVE Auction Requirements.
Gambling Insider compared the current pages with archived copies held by the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. TikTok publishes no changelog, so the dates below are the “last updated” dates printed on each page, and the archive may not have captured every version.
The rewrite comes as breakers, livestream sellers who open sealed card packs on camera and sell spots in them, have sued TikTok and Fanatics and as lawsuits elsewhere test whether card breaks are illegal lotteries.
TikTok Rewrites Its Break Rules Three Times in Four Months
The May 27 version of the Gambling Policy banned three break formats: random card breaks, draft-style breaks, and bounty breaks.
Then the June 25 version expanded the list to eight named formats, described as “non-exhaustive examples”: random team, draft-style, bounty, pull games, points programs, train games, king of the hill, and HP battles. PPC Land reported the same eight bans.
The June 25 text still allowed the format “if you are using a manufacturer-sealed surprise set,” meaning a product packaged by the card maker.
The Aug. 31 version dropped that wording. Random team breaks are now “permitted exclusively through TikTok Shop’s Surprise Set feature (limited to eligible sellers).”
Team assignments, it added, “must be generated by the platform’s official randomization tool,” and “no external tools, manual draws, or off-platform methods are permitted.”
The same update banned raffles for unsold spots and limited blind-box promotion to boxes made as blind boxes by brands the platform recognizes.
TikTok’s August seller bulletin, Policy Pulse, described the change only as adding “prohibited break types in random team break (RTB).” It did not mention the Surprise Set route.
TikTok Built Surprise Sets Before the Crackdown
Surprise Sets predate the June changes. According to TikTok, the feature launched in October 2025 and is open to a limited number of eligible sellers in a few categories. It does not appear in the Nov. 3, 2025, Collectibles Policy, but by the April 7 version, TikTok was describing it as an auction product “where the exact item(s) a customer purchases are revealed after the auction ends,” with access “limited to invite-only sellers.”
The April rules restricted Surprise Sets to collectibles such as trading cards, comics, and model cars:
- Every item had to be manufacturer-sealed.
- A set could not be bid above $5,000.
- Every reveal had to use “the official TikTok randomization tool.”
- Sellers could not use “gambling-style language” such as “jackpot” or “golden ticket.”
By May 27, TikTok had moved the Surprise Sets rules to its Auction Requirements page. The July 16 version of that page shows the product had reached well beyond cards, listing eligible categories with a value range for each item:
- Collectibles: $50 to $5,000
- Phones and electronics, home supplies, and sports and outdoor: $50 to $500
- Beauty and personal care, fashion accessories, toys, and hobbies: $20 to $500
WIRED reported in June that Surprise Set streams showed iPhones and iPads to bidders who then received cheap items.
“I just paid $147 for a stuffed animal,” one winner wrote in a stream’s chat.
A day after WIRED contacted TikTok, the company barred iPhones, iPads, televisions, diamonds, gift cards, and precious metals from Surprise Sets, a change Shopifreaks also reported. TikTok told WIRED the update was already planned.
According to TikTok, sellers must give each set a clear and accurate title explaining what buyers may receive, list how many of each possible item it contains and show every possible item on screen during the livestream.
Sellers who break its rules can face limits on hosting future livestreams, removal of auction listings or account suspension, and TikTok said it reviews reports of misleading or non-compliant seller conduct.
@sellwithtiktokshop_usTikTok Shop has a mystery countdown bidding feature and it is going crazy right now
♬ original sound – sellwithtiktokshop_us – sellwithtiktokshop_usHere is how Surprise Sets work: You build a prize pool with multiple products of different values. Viewers bid to enter. The winner gets a random prize revealed live by a spinning wheel. The remaining prizes stay visible to keep everyone else bidding. Always disclose the minimum prize value to keep your buyers happy
#TikTokShop #SurpriseSet #CountdownBidding #TikTokLive #LiveSelling #TikTokShopSeller #SellerTips #MakeMoneyOnTikTok #EcommerceTips #sellwithtiktokshop
Caption: TikTok Shop’s US seller account promotes the randomized auction feature.
TikTok Drops Published Numeric Limits on Prize Spreads
The July 16 page also capped the spread of values within a set. “The highest MSRP in the Surprise Set must not be more than 10 times the lowest MSRP,” it said.
And items with the highest MSRP had to “account for at least 10% of the total quantity of items.” MSRP is the manufacturer’s suggested retail price.
Both limits are absent from the Sept. 1 version. In their place, the page says: “Price variation within a Surprise Set must be reasonable,” and sets “must not be structured so that high-value items are disproportionately rare.”
Neither term is defined on the page. The wording remains in the current version, updated Sept. 24.
According to TikTok, because Surprise Sets now cover a wide range of categories, it applies a set of principles that limit the highest- and lowest-value items in a set. Sellers must enter prices and quantities when they upload a set, and TikTok rejects listings that fail its conditions. TikTok did not say what those conditions are.
TikTok’s Policy Pages Tell Sellers Different Things
The Sept. 1 Collectibles Policy, still current, keeps the wording that the Gambling Policy dropped.
On random team breaks, it says: “This is allowed if you are using a manufacturer-sealed surprise set.” The next line says the same breaks are “permitted exclusively through TikTok Shop’s Surprise Set feature.”
According to TikTok, both conditions apply. Surprise Sets sold in LIVE auctions, including those used for random team breaks, must be manufacturer-sealed, and random team breaks must use the Surprise Set randomization tool so that spots are allocated to buyers at random.
TikTok said the tool must be used whenever items in a set are randomly assigned to a group of buyers, in any category, and that it regularly revises its policy wording to make it clearer for sellers.
The same section of the Collectibles Policy states: “Gambling activities are prohibited on TikTok Shop.”
“This includes any form of randomized distribution where customers don’t select a specific type of product.” In a Surprise Set, the buyer does not choose the item they receive; TikTok’s software assigns it.
According to TikTok, gambling and games of chance are banned on TikTok Shop, including raffles, spins, sweepstakes and any content where users pay for a chance to win.
Its response did not directly address whether Surprise Sets fall within the Collectibles Policy’s definition of randomized distribution. TikTok said all TikTok Shop content and features are restricted to users aged 18 and over.
Breakers Challenge TikTok as Other Platforms Face Lottery Claims
Three breakers have sued TikTok and Fanatics in the US District Court for the Central District of California. Attorney Jeremy Shafer represents all three.
- Oct. 20, 2025: GFC & Supply, which trades as Bigpapa Breaks, filed the first suit, which also names the NFL. Bloomberg Law reported the filing.
- July 13, 2026: David Skalsky, suing individually and as successor to QCBripNship LLC, which ran the Quad City Breaks livestream business, filed the second. It also names the NFL. Courthouse News reported the filing.
- Sept. 8, 2026: Ohio breaker DormDudesBreaks, which trades as Dorm Dudes, filed the third. Its docket lists the Skalsky case as related.
The suits bring antitrust and unfair competition claims. In varying terms, they allege that Fanatics was falsely presented as the exclusive source of NFL memorabilia and that TikTok banned or suppressed breakers who would not deal exclusively in Fanatics products.
The Dorm Dudes complaint asks the court to bar what it calls “unlawful and wrongful gamblification violations (allegations of gambling) resulting in violations and permanent bans.”
The complaint does not argue whether breaks constitute gambling.
None of the allegations has been tested in court. TikTok moved to dismiss the GFC suit, arguing in part that it is immune from the claims, MLex reported. Gambling Insider found no reported ruling on the motion.
Other platforms face the opposite argument: that breaks are illegal gambling. The Athletic reported in March that attorney Paul Lesko had filed 15 arbitration demands against Whatnot on behalf of 30 clients.
The demands allege that Whatnot operates an unregulated online casino in breach of California’s lottery laws. Whatnot has rejected the claims. Athlon reported in July that no arbitrator had issued a final ruling.
A separate suit targets both Whatnot and Fanatics Live, the livestream platform owned by Fanatics.
Filed in July 2025 under the California False Claims Act, the complaint alleges that the companies run “unlicensed box-break lotteries” and failed to pay required taxes or obtain gambling licenses, ESPN reported in June after the complaint was unsealed.
California’s Department of Justice declined to intervene, a spokesman told ESPN. Womble Bond Dickinson has also noted the suit. Neither report names the case nor the court where it was filed, and Gambling Insider could not locate the filing.
That leaves Fanatics, which also runs a sportsbook and a prediction market, on both sides of the argument. Breakers accuse it of helping push them off TikTok with wrongful gambling allegations, while its own breaks platform faces claims that such breaks are lotteries.
Caption: a random team break of a Fanatics product
Card Breaks Remain in a Regulatory Gray Area
No US state regulator or attorney general has publicly ruled on whether card breaks are gambling, Gambling Insider found. California’s Gambling Control Commission says the legality of card breaks is a question for the state’s attorney general.
“Any such determination on their legality would have to come from the Attorney General’s Office,” Fred Castaño, the commission’s public information officer, told Gambling Insider.
The commission “has no investigative or enforcement authority,” he said, and its work is “mainly focused on cardrooms and tribal casinos.”
Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office previously issued a formal opinion in 2025 that daily fantasy sports are illegal in California.
Fanatics, Whatnot, Shafer, Lesko and the California attorney general’s office had not responded to Gambling Insider’s requests for comment by the time of publication.
This story will be updated if Gambling Insider receives on-the-record replies.
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