Sports Teams Ask California to Approve High Stakes Raffles

The proposal for selling high stakes raffles is faced with severe criticism about unfair exemptions by the non-profitable organizations.

High stakes raffle sellers from California and the major teams in several professional leagues in US are pushing lawmakers to approve charitable betting at professional sports. According to online gambling sites in the US, this last initiative aims at providing a legal base for administration of charity gambling at the major professional sports venues.

• California votes for selling 50%-50% high stakes raffles
• The clubs can help the community through the raffles
• Many expect that the proposal will be approved by the lawmakers

If the legislation passes the raffle, vendors will have the opportunity to sell raffle tickets that will give half of the incomes as prize money and the other half will be addressed to charity activities. The initiative is already supposed to involve 18 clubs that compete in the professional US sports leagues and 23 teams in minor leagues. It is also said that several golf and racing competitions from the country will also join the initiative.

The allowance of high stakes raffles is widely criticized

The 50%-50% raffles are already a popular measure in US, but not in California where the current laws say that a maximum of 10% of the proceeds can be allowed as a prize while the rest of the 90% must be delivered to charities. The bookie stories that are concerned with this issue say that there are many parties that will be unsatisfied in California with the current proposal. There is a problem now, considering it allows an exemption from the law favoring only those venues that will sell the high stakes raffles. Jan Masaoka, chief executive of the California Association of Nonprofits, an organization with nearly 10,000 nonprofit members, stresses that “any bill that says there’s an exemption from the law for 11 corporations as named below, that immediately doesn’t smell right.” Several churches, food banks and PTA’s also pointed out that this exemption would be unfair towards them.

Against these accusations for unfair treatment of the non-profitable organizations, Sen. Isadore Hall, emphasized that the 50%-50% raffles are of great success in 29 states and across Canada. Voters in Texas will also decide in November to change their state constitution in order to let teams such as the Dallas Cowboys to hold raffles at games. The bill that Hall advocates is also supported by clubs like the Los Angeles Dodgers, San Francisco Giants and Sacramento Kings, as well as lobby groups such as the American Legion, Los Angeles Boys and Girls Club, gambling news report.

Voting for the high stakes raffles will bring more advantages for the charities

Hall stresses further that it is amazing that “corporations, businesses and sports teams desire to help nonprofit organizations, which — by the way — are struggling across the nation to provide services to the community.” She illustrates the advantages of the law that allows the selling of high stakes raffles with the positive effects it had in Arizona. In 2013, for instance, the Arizona Diamondbacks sold 50-50 raffle tickets of USD 100,016 value in one game. With this action they succeeded to support charities concerning the Yarnell fire, which killed 19 firefighters. The critics according to Hall should be ashamed of opposing a bill that will bring much-needed resources to the poor communities Watts and Compton. On the other side it is worth mentioning that the bill has no restrictions on the kind of charities that the money will be addressed for. It is all up to the sports teams to choose in what kind of charities they will be involved.

Thus for instance the charity program that the San Francisco Giants are included in is the Junior Giants baseball program for at-risk youth, online casinos in the US report. On the other side the Los Angeles Dodger’s program is its Dodgers Dreamfields, through which the club help the renovation of baseball courts in low-income urban neighborhoods. As, Jack Blair, vice president and general counsel for the Giants, notes, the point is not to compete with the nonprofits but to cooperate with them in order to gain something for the community. By selling the 50% – 50% high stakes raffles, he says, the club could generate up to USD 1 million a year for the charities in Northern California. The proposal for the 50% – 50% high stakes raffles failed last year. But this one, however, being supported by such a big group of lobbyists, it is expected by many that the initiative will finally pass.