Bingo & Raffle Newsletter

Quarterly Reports Due April 30

If you held a 2022 license at any time during the 1st quarter 2022, you MUST submit your LE-21 Quarterly Report form by April 30, 2022. The report covers the period from January 1 through March 31. Reports filed after this date will be assessed a $50 late filing fee.

Filing quarterly reports using our online system is cheaper than filing paper forms. If needed, all paper forms can still be found on our website, including all daily forms.

Please make sure to provide copies of daily forms for progressive bingo (LE-34a), progressive pull tabs (LE-31a), and progressive raffles (LE-34c) with your submission. The progressive bingo forms should be updated after each bingo occasion and the pull tab and raffle forms should be updated regularly.

If you have any questions or concerns, contact Lisa Marty at lisa.marty@coloradosos.gov or Denise Lamberth at denise.lamberth@coloradosos.gov.

2022 Bingo-Raffle Licenses

If you plan to conduct charitable gaming activities in 2022, you can apply for your annual license at any time during 2022 via the online or paper application form (please allow 7-10 working days processing time). This applies to both new licenses and renewals. Licenses can be printed directly from the summary page if you apply online (once your filing is reviewed and approved). If mailing your application, your license number will be e-mailed if this is provided on the form, once it has been received and processed. To minimize unnecessary delays, please review your application before submitting. Sign into your account if you wish to apply online or visit our forms page to download the paper license application. New applicants can start the process from here. Please contact Program Manager Shannon Bee by email at shannon.bee@sos.state.co.us with any questions.

Online Filing Thanks

We are currently at a solid 90% of groups filing their documentation online. That is a 3% improvement over where we were about this time last year. Our office would like to say “Thank You” to all of the organization’s that have taken the opportunity to make this transition or continue to file via our online portal, we truly appreciate you! As always, for those still filing by paper, please remember that the fees for online filing of quarterlies are cheaper than those for paper filing, and your filing or renewal is not being held up by waiting for the mail to be delivered to our office. If you would like to start the process of going to online filing, our team stands ready to assist you. Just give us a call or drop us a line – we are more than happy to aid you in taking advantage of this filing method.

Bingo/Raffle Advisory Board

The Colorado Bingo-Raffle Advisory Board makes recommendations 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 next meeting is scheduled for:

When: TBD-check our website for updates

Where: Zoom

Specifics regarding any meeting and how to attend can be found here.

If you have any questions, please feel free to send us an email at licensing@coloradosos.gov.

We would also like to remind current members of the Board that there is a statutory requirement that they complete yearly Board training. This training is available here under Bingo-Raffle Advisory Board training.

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 years 2013 through 2022. Reports are updated quarterly.

Welcome Back!

We at the Charitable Gaming section of the Secretary of State’s office would like to welcome our licensees (both renewing and new) back to your fundraising activities through bingo and raffle games! It has been a long, strange road over the last couple of years, but we are now beginning on a path back to normalcy, with the capacity to publicly gather again, to be able to raise additional funds for your organizations. Our office continues to be available for any questions you may have regarding your charitable gaming activities, so do not hesitate to contact us. We look forward to our continued communications with your organizations. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns, or if you just want to drop us a line regarding your successes!

Positive Upswing in Charitable Gaming

The graph below shows a 3-year comparison of the Gross Amount Wagered for all game types side by side. The graph shows a positive comeback for 2021, which is very encouraging. The numbers obtained for this graph are from the Aggregate report linked below under "charitable gaming financial reports". The aggregate report on the website, shows the profit for each game has remained steady. We know that 2020 was difficult, but licensees have continued to hang in there through the difficult times and it appears we’re on the way back!

Complete numbers can be found on bingo and raffles home page under the charitable gaming financial reports.

E-Filing a Bingo-Raffle License Renewal

Please remember, if you wish to continue to conduct charitable games of chance in 2022, you will need to renew your Bingo-Raffle license for 2022 before starting or continuing any games into 2022. All 2021 Bingo-Raffle licenses expired December 31, 2021. The Secretary of State's office encourages groups to file online. If renewing online, the licensee can access their online account and use the “renew” link on their account’s summary page. Please do not create a new account as these filings will need to be rejected and resubmitted through your already existing account.

When filing online, the system will only accept credit or debit cards; we do not have ACH or the ability to directly transfer funds from your accounts. The card, however, does not have to be linked directly to the bingo-raffle account. A personal card could be used (we do not retain any card information once the submission is made to our office), and then be reimbursed from the bingo-raffle account (we will need adequate descriptions on the schedule A that the reimbursement was for a “loan” to repay the person using their personal card for this payment). Also, the group has the option of obtaining a prepaid card where it can be loaded with the appropriate amount to cover the payment.

Games Manager Training

Your organization must have at least one certified Games Manager in order to run charitable games. We recommend licensees maintain more than one Games Manager. To support this, we offer in-person and online Games Manager training courses.

All live classes have currently been cancelled due to COVID 19. Please go to this link for further updates on live classes.

Refunding of Payment Policy

Our office has instituted timeline limits for refunding monies for services provided by our office for Bingo-Raffle submissions. To see this new policy, please go to our Fees schedule page to review. Going forward, this same policy will be on any payment page prior to your submitting a filing online which includes a payment requirement. Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns.

Investigator Tips

Each quarter, we include a few tips from our Bingo/Raffle Investigators. They gather a lot hope that licensees can better serve their customers.

A MESSAGE FROM THE INVESTIGATORS

LE34a PROGRESSIVE BINGO JACKPOT

Have you noticed a blackout box on the first occasion of a the LE34a Progressive Jackpot Bingo form? Well it is there for a reason. Rule 3.2.3 (c) states:

"On the second and subsequent occasions, the jackpot amount increases by a percentage of the gross proceeds, not greater than 70%, collected from the sale of progressive bingo cards or sheets during that occasion or on the prior occasion. If a licensee is conducting a progressive jackpot bingo game with a secondary jackpot, 10% of the gross proceeds collected from the sale of progressive bingo cards or sheets at that occasion or the prior occasion must be set aside and segregated from the jackpot amount in the bingo-raffle account."

Do not ignore the black box. You will not contribute to the jackpot for the first occasion. The first contribution to the jackpot must be made starting on the second occasion. The amount of the contribution will be based on your answer to the question on the LE-34a for, Line 7. Are you contributing to the same occasion or next occasion? Your second occasion will start with your first occasion’s jackpot amount, and then you will contribute according to the answer to question 7. If you use the excel form on our website the formulas will calculate your numbers per our rules.

Please feel free to contact our office at 303 894 2200 if you have questions.

You can access all bingo/raffle laws using our Bingo-Raffles Law Handbook. Please feel free to contact our office with any questions.

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