Quarterly Reports Due July 31

If you held a 2022 license at any time during the 2nd quarter, you MUST submit your LE-21 Quarterly Report form by July 31, 2022.  The report covers the period from April 1 through June 30. 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 at shannon.bee@coloradosos.gov with any questions.

We Can Help With That

We are maintaining the 90% of groups filing their documentation online. Our office would love to assist groups that have yet to transition, by contacting us to assist with this move to online filing. Also, a huge “Thank You!” to all the organizations that have taken the opportunity to make this transition or continue to file via our online portal. As always, for online filing of quarterlies, fees 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 are looking to transition, 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 first quarter 2022. Reports are updated quarterly.

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 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.

What Does "Amend" Mean on the Quarterly Report Page?

After filing a quarterly report and the report being approved by our office, you will see Amend next to this and some prior quarterly reports. THIS DOES NOT MEAN THE QUARTERLY NEEDS TO BE AMENDED. This is simply stating the licensee has the ability to amend the reports with this wording next to it, if needed (such as the licensee sees that something in the report was reported incorrectly and needs to be changed).

Additionally, please remember, amending a prior quarter will lock out the ability to do other functionality, such as filing your next quarter report, filing a change, or being able to renew your license, until the amendment is submitted and approved.

Also, amending a prior quarter is not the same as filing the next quarter report. Amending a prior report does just that, it changes the filing, much like sending an amendment in paper format. If you incorrectly go in to “amend” a report and do not wish to actually file an amendment, you can go to the summary page for the quarterlies and click on “reset filing”. This will close the report with the original data and you can proceed with submitting the next quarterly, change or renewal.

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.

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 for a scheduled class.

The dates/times/places of upcoming Games Manager training classes follow:

Saturday, July 30, 2022 at 8:30 AM. VFW 2601, 340 Lashley St #150, Longmont, CO, 80504.

Saturday, September 10, 2022 at 8:30 AM. Dolores County Senior Center/Pioneer Center, 8540 Road 7.2, Dove Creek, CO 81321

We are committed to providing Games Manager Classes and licensee outreach and want to ensure anyone who attend the classes be safe.

• During the Games Manager class masks will be encouraged if you have all required vaccines. If you have not been vaccinated please wear a mask while in the building.
• If CDC guidance recommends your county wear masks indoors, we will be wearing masks indoors.
• If a COVID variant is increasing in your area, the Games Manager Class may be postponed.
• If you are exhibiting symptoms of COVID please do not attend the class. If you are having allergy symptoms it is recommended that a rapid, at home test be taken same day prior to attending class. If the result is positive please stay home and follow CDC guidance regarding quarantine.
• If you are exhibiting COVID symptoms, the instructor may ask you to take the test online or schedule yourself for another class.

Online Games Manager Training Notes

If you are taking the online games manager training there are some points to remember:

• You must complete ALL modules within the chosen training. You cannot complete a portion of the available modules within the training and be considered complete.
• Once you have completed all the modules, you will see within your training that all modules are checked off. To actually become certified, you must then open the “What’s Next” section that will link you to the Games Manager Oath form which you must print, complete, and mail in with the $20 certification fee, per the instructions on this page.
• Once this completed oath form and fee are received in our office, it will take 3-5 working days to process. Once processed, your certificate will be e-mailed to you on to the e-mail address listed on the oath form.
• Until you have received your certificate from our office, you are not certified and cannot assume games manager duties.

Please feel free to contact us if you have further questions.

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 of information in the field with areas where licensees have compliance challenges. By sharing this information, we hope that licensees can better serve their customers.

You can access all bingo/raffle laws using our Bingo-Raffles Law Handbook. Here are this quarter's tips:

When there is a dispute in a bingo game and the Games Manager is not clear on the proper way to proceed, you should not pay any prize money until the dispute is resolved through the use of the law book.  Rule 3 provides guidance on how bingo games must be played.  If the dispute is not resolved, then no payment should be made, and you should contact our office. Rule 3.3.1 states that “While investigating disputed prizes, the Secretary of State may instruct a licensee to pay a disputed prize if the preponderance of the evidence is in favor of the player”. 

In addition, always be sure that you have the proper signage in place at all times.  That includes:

• Materials and notices that a licensee must post (Rule 2.4)
• Signs by each televisions monitor (rule 3.1.3)
• Progressive jackpot bingo game rules (Rule 3.2)
• Notification that all unsold tickets in a last sale pull tab game are not in the container (Rule 5.3.1 & 5.3.2).  

This is not an exhaustive list of the signs and notices, but they are the ones that come up most often.  Please be sure you understand all the laws and rules before proceeding.