Quarterly Reports Due July 31
If you hold a 2014 license, you MUST submit your LE-21 Quarterly Report form by July 31. The report covers the period for April through June. Reports filed after this date will be assessed a $50 late filing fine.
Please make sure you download and use the correct forms from our website.
If you have any questions or concerns, contact Lisa Marty at lisa.marty@coloradosos.gov.
New Rules and Legislation
As a reminder, House Bill 14-1265 will go into effect on August 6, 2014. You can find full text of the bill here. In short, the bill:
- Gives licensees the option to provide limited food for their volunteers as a way to retain and incentivize their workforce.
- Allows licensees to run “separate” progressives for occasions at different days/times of the
- Reorganizes some of the most complex pieces of the statute.
- Makes changes to simplify raffles at large public events
Our office is currently in the process of promulgating administrative rules to support this legislation. The rules have a targeted effective date of August 14, 2014. You can find information related to the rulemaking process on our website.
Bingo/Raffle Financial Reports
Our office is committed to using our state-wide reach to provide timely and accurate data to the bingo/raffle community. We use the information you provide on quarterly reports to publish two informative datasets on our website:
- Aggregate revenue report: this report contains a "roll-up" of total revenue, expense, and profit data for charitable gaming in the state.
- Revenue by licensee: this report contains similar information broken down by individual bingo/raffle licensees. We began publishing this report in response to a request from our Bingo/Raffle Advisory Board.
Our website currently contains reports for calendar year 2013 and for the first quarter of 2014. We will update the reports on a quarterly basis.
Bingo/Raffle Advisory Board
The Colorado Bingo-Raffle Advisory Board provides guidance to the Secretary of State's office in its regulation of the charitable gaming sector. All members of the public are encouraged to attend and contribute to this important dialogue. The Advisory Board will hold its next meeting in July.
When: Wednesday, July 16 at 10:00am
Where: 1700 Broadway, Denver, CO 80290, Blue Spruce Room (Second Floor)
Come join the meeting to share your thoughts on bingo and raffle activities in our state.
If you have any questions, please feel free to write us an email at licensing@coloradosos.gov
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New Resource: Bingo Management Toolkit
We are very excited to announce the release of a new, free resource for our bingo/raffle customers: the Bingo Toolkit.
The Bingo Toolkit is a collection of tips and best practices from some of Colorado’s leading charitable gaming managers. Inside you’ll find ways to motivate volunteers, market your occasions, bring more excitement and variety to your gaming events, keep regular players happy, and attract new players.
If you’re just beginning to run a charitable gaming operation, this guide will help you get off to a strong start. These best practices were taken from extensive research on what successful games managers are doing to run profitable games. Then we put it together in an easy-to-use reference that you can use as much or as little as it will be helpful to you.
If you’ve been at this for a while and are looking for a few ideas to give your charitable games a boost, then you’ve come to the right place. That said, not every idea in this toolkit will be right for you. Feel free to pick and choose what seems most relevant and useful to your organization.
The toolkit is free for all members of the public. To access the toolkit in PDF format, or to order free paper copies, visit our website. See below for a glance at the toolkit layout. Enjoy, and best wishes for great success in your efforts to raise money for your organization!
Quarterly Data Points: Annual Profits
There's good reason to be excited for charitable gaming after the first quarter of 2014. As the figure below shows, profits increased in four of the five major types of charitable games in the first quarter of the year, compared to the same period in 2013. Most notably, raffle profits shot up by nearly 29%. Progressive bingo games and pulltabs at bar and club rooms also saw healthy upticks, while pulltabs at bingo (already one of the most lucrative game types) notched a 5% year-on-year gain.
The exception to this rosy picture is regular bingo, which saw a nearly 10% decrease in quarterly profit. Still, this drop was not enough to weigh down overall charitable gaming profitability, which gained 15% from last year. Of course, the year is still young, but let's hope this positive trend continues!
You can find more information on the bingo/raffle financial reports page available on our website.
New: Free Nonprofit Board Education Resource
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As a nonprofit leader, you may interact on a regular basis with the organization's Board of Directors. Or, just as likely, you yourself are a member of one or more boards. In either case, we think you'll be interested in our office's new educational resource for nonprofit board members.
The five-part eLearning series is entitled Board Education and Effectiveness. It is available online for free at the Secretary of State's website. Each of the five modules is aimed at helping nonprofits train and strengthen their boards of directors. The courses are free and open to the public, and cover the following topics: Fiduciary Duties of Nonprofit Directors, Board Governance, Understanding the Form 990 and Financial Ratios, Regulatory Compliance, and Personnel Issues.
The board effectiveness training project originated from a series of meetings in 2012 between the Secretary of State’s office and nonprofit community leaders centered on strengthening nonprofits in Colorado. Our office worked in conjunction with leaders in the Colorado nonprofit community to produce and review course content, including the Colorado Nonprofit Association, Community Resource Center, Metro Volunteers, the Colorado Ballet, Boys and Girls Club of Metro Denver, the Sand Creek Regional Greenway, and Kids in Need of Dentistry (KIND). The review team also included legal professionals from Leaffer Law, a Denver-based firm that specializes in providing counsel for nonprofit organizations. Since the launch of the first course last November, 5,400 unique visitors have accessed the courses
The entire series of five courses is available online at https://www.coloradosos.gov/pubs/charities/boardTraining.html. We hope you will find the course useful and entertaining!
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Games Manager Training
Remember, your organization must have at least one certified Games Manager in order to run charitable games. We continue to offer in-person and online Games Manager training courses.
Sign up for the online eLearning course on our website.
For in-person classes, visit our Games Manager Training page and follow the instructions to sign up. See table below for the current schedule.
You can also sign up to host a Games Manager training course. Follow this link to provide us with a few details about you and your organization, and host a class soon.
Please note that the Games Manager mail-in certification exam is no longer available.
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