The topic of raffle cars has come up recently, and we’ve been asked if VOA will do a car raffle. The answer is no, not at this time. Here is why. (I’m posting this in the officer’s forum because I don’t really want to open the door for a long debate on the legalities of raffles or comparisons between VOA and VCA by certain people in the open forum. But I wanted you presidents to know in case your members ask you.)
Although some organizations claim it’s legal, before the split, VCA’s attorneys advised us (and that “us” includes the current president of VCA) that technically, it’s not possible to legally conduct a cross-state raffle because every state has different requirements, so you’d have to meet the requirements from every state (some of which conflict) and obtain a permit for each state that tickets are sold in. People still hold raffles, because gaming commissions look the other way unless someone reports it. Given that someone DID report our door prize drawing to the gaming commission, I’m not opening up VOA to the liability of investigating illegal raffles or the accusations that we are “just like the old club”.
However, our door prize drawing at NVE 1 was legal. It was not a loop hole, as some people like to call it, it was a legal way to do it under Ohio law. Door prizes are different from raffles (by Ohio law), and since the tickets were not sold, but given to attendees, it qualified as a door prize. The tickets were drawn in Ohio, so everything was done in one location and met the laws of Ohio. This was not only confirmed, but suggested by the Ohio Attorney General’s office, and validated when it was witnessed by both the Chief of Police from London, Ohio who was present at the drawing, and the Michigan State Police, who was in our banquet room. We hope you are comfortable with our decision. We do intend to continue the tradition of a door prize car at NVE2.
Your national officers, Maurice, Alex, Janni, and Brad.
