Lotteries Committee Cracks Down on Unregistered Raffles

The Lotteries Committee is reminding the public that all raffles must be registered under the Lotteries Control Act, even those organized as holiday giveaways. According to the recent advisory, the regulation is designed to protect consumers from fraudulent schemes and ensure transparency. While raffles with prizes valued below five hundred dollars will not incur a licensing fee, organizers are still required to register their activity with the committee. For prizes exceeding that threshold, a five percent tax applies based on the prize’s value, not the number of tickets sold. We spoke with the Secretary of the Lotteries Committee, Lewin Samuels.

 

Lewin Samuels, Secretary, Lotteries Committee

“This regulation is created for companies and individuals who want to do a Christmas cheer and give back to their consumers. They need to be legal and register their activity. The reason behind that is for consumer protection. Your raffle is not registered with the lotteries committee and time and time and time again we hear people say I have won a raffle and have been unable to collect my prize. What protection do you have if this company or individual did not register the raffle with the lotteries committee. It is a good thing, but people are unaware of the law, and it becomes challenging because they say we are giving back but you want us to pay a fee to give back, but you are not just giving back. That raffle ticket must be qualified by you purchasing some item or providing some service to be qualified to enter the raffle. So, it is giving back, but they have to do an activity to get a chance to win. The fee structure is based on the value of the raffle. There is a five percent tax on the value of the prize, not based on the amount of tickets sold. So five percent, let us say the value of the prize is a thousand dollars, five percent of that is minimal and you might sell two thousand tickets at two dollars each. During Christmas you find somebody come around with a list to raffle a turkey, a case of beer and a wine and the number is based on the boledo number, from 00-99 and not to bring any kind of financial burden to these persons, we say anything under the value of five hundred will be given a free license, but they it still has to register.”