Currys PS5 restock lottery system can help you beat the bots

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Defeat the scalpers with Currys PS5 restock lottery — here's how it works

PS5 restock
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It's one enormously frustrating experience finding where to buy PS5 in the UK, but Currys PC World’s new PS5 Priority Pass might make it just a little bit more bearable. 

This lottery system will randomly select entrants who will then be given the opportunity to purchase a PS5, hassle-free. So that should mean you avoid needing to battle with scalper bots and deal with overloaded websites. 

All you have to do is signup at Currys PC World, then if you’re fortunate enough to be chosen, you will be emailed a unique buying code which entitles you to purchase a PS5. You then have 72 hours to pay for the console, before it’s passed along to another entrant. 

Currys PC World isn’t the first retailer to experiment with more customer-friendly ways to distributing PS5 stock, Newegg introduced the Newegg Shuffle in January Whereas Box opened a ballot system for allocating stock of the Xbox Series X last December. 

Perhaps the biggest drawback of the system is that it’s only for purchasing a console in a Currys PC World retail store, and isn’t yet being deployed for online restocks. This does mean that if you’re selected, you’ll have to wait for when non-essential retail stores are allowed to reopen. At the moment, it's currently slated for April 12 in England. 

However, considering that buying a PS5 requires a massive amount of luck anyway, this system seems like a relatively stress-free way to get your hands on Sony’s next-gen gaming machine. 

To further reduce pesky scalpers, Currys PC World has set the Priority Pass to one registration per person, and if selected you will only have the opportunity to purchase a single console. 

We hope that more retailers will implement a similar system in the future, if only for the sake of our F5 keys which have taken a real beating over the past few months as we desperately refresh websites. 

To best boost your chances of getting a PS5, you need to be monitoring dozens of retailers and keeping on top of restocks that can change at a moment’s notice. It’s all pretty exhausting. So make sure to bookmark our guide on where to buy a PS5 in the UK and let us do all that hard work for you.  

Rory Mellon
Rory Mellon
Senior Entertainment Editor (UK)

Rory is a Senior Entertainment Editor at Tom’s Guide based in the UK. He covers a wide range of topics but with a particular focus on gaming and streaming. When he’s not reviewing the latest games, searching for hidden gems on Netflix, or writing hot takes on new gaming hardware, TV shows and movies, he can be found attending music festivals and getting far too emotionally invested in his favorite football team.