New Rules for Raffles; Solving a Problem You Didn’t Know You Had

If you conduct even an occasional raffle, you may not know that you can only accept cash for purchases of lottery tickets, no debit cards, no checks and no charge cards. Those rules had been on the books since 1995 but only came to light for many charities when Governor Cuomo proposed new legislation to allow charities to accept checks, charges, credit and debit cards.

The new legislation will also make it easier to conduct games of chance at locations other than their own, and would simplify some of the paperwork for charities. It would allow alcoholic beverages to be included as prizes and increase the size of prizes.

The new legislation isn’t law as we write this newsletter but we will watch the progress and you should as well if it affects you.