Objectives:
• To determine whether quit and win contests can deliver higher long-term quit rates than baseline community quit rates.
• To assess the impact of such programmes, we considered both the quit rates achieved by participants, and the population impact, which takes into account the proportion of the target population entering the contest.

Conclusions:
Quit and win contests at local and regional level appear to deliver quit rates above baseline community rates, although the population impact of the contests seems to be relatively low. Contests may be subject to levels of deception which could compromise the validity of the intervention. International contests may prove to be an effective mechanism, particularly in developing countries, but a lack of well-designed comparative studies precludes any firm conclusions.