• Raffle Games For Work
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• Difference Between Raffles And Gambling Sites

I was brought up to believe that Christians should never participate in a raffle – raffles are a form of gambling and therefore should be avoided. As a result for years I never bought a raffle ticket – instead I would often make a donation to the good cause involved. As a minister I did not allow raffles on church premises, on the grounds that as Christians we do not believe in games of chance. In the words of the 1936 Methodist ‘Declaration on Gambling’, “belief in luck cannot be reconciled with faith in God”. Gambling undermines the “binding ties of human fellowship”. It represents the desire for gain at another’s loss, and is in opposition to the Christian life of self-sacrifice.

But in the last few years I have begun to change my mind. I still believe that gambling is wrong. It is wrong not least because of the harm it causes. It is estimated that in the Britain there are a third of a million problem gamblers, for whom gambling compromises their lives, relationships, ability to hold down a job, and even health. In addition, there are a further million who are ‘at risk’ of becoming problem gamblers.

But are raffles a form of gambling? Until I began to write this blog, I would have said no. However, to my surprise I have discovered that technically raffles are ‘a gambling competition’ and that English law classifies raffles as ‘non-commercial lotteries’. Indeed, there are legal restrictions to raffles: for instance, the amounts deducted from the proceeds of the lottery in respect of (a) the cost of prizes, and (b) the costs incurred in organising the lottery must not exceed £500 and £100 respectively.

Some Christians continue to feel strongly that raffles are a form of gambling, and therefore are to be condemned. According to one American web-site, raffles involve covetousness, greed, love of money, unneighbourly behaviour, and are even a form of lust!

In New Zealand and Australia, meat raffles are commonplace in pubs and registered clubs. Trays of meat or seafood are raffled to raise money for a cause, often a local sporting club. Similar raffles are held in Minnesota and Rhode Island. A cash raffle is when the prize is a fraction of the total of the earnings.

To my mind there is a real distinction between what ‘hard’ forms of gambling and raffles. First and foremost raffles are about giving to a good cause, and involve relatively small sums of money. The prizes are always limited. Furthermore, there is a very real difference between ‘lotteries’, which some people call a form of ‘soft’ gambling, and raffles. Lotteries tend to have much bigger prizes, and although good causes may benefit, people do not enter the lottery primarily to help a good cause, but rather they want to win something – and so they often lay out a good deal of money. I shall never forget talking to a London taxi driver about the lottery, and he told me that rather than invest in a pension he thought it wiser to put money every week on the lottery in the hope of winning the jackpot – what utter nonsense!

Raffle Games For Work

If raffles may technically be a form of gambling, the reality is that the sums of money are so relatively trivial that nobody is ‘harmed’ in the process. Typically at a charity event raffles raise around £300 a time, with most people spending no more than £5 a strip. For charities there is no doubt that such money does make a difference, and so I would argue raffles can be a good thing and are even to be encouraged.

Difference Between Raffles And Gambling Center

However, within the context of a local church, I am less inclined to favour raffles. As Christians we have a God-given responsibility to support the work of the church through ‘proportionate giving’. Furthermore, experience shows that ‘fundraising activities’ of all kinds are always less effective than direct-giving.

So in conclusion: gambling is definitely to be condemned – and not least because all too often it is the poor who suffer. Raffles, however, I see in a different light. I find it significant that the Methodist Church in Britain, which has always been strongly opposed to gambling, allows raffles on church premises provided they are not ‘a substantial inducement’ for a person to attend an event. Indeed, its 1992 statement on gambling the Methodist Church said, it is important “to heed the experience of our tradition in our concern for the serious evils of gambling; but also to avoid the heavy-footed pursuit of the trivial”. The fact is that there are much bigger ethical issues to focus upon – to focus on raffles is equivalent to getting worked up about the iotas and dots of the Law (see Matt 5.18).

A raffle is a gamblingcompetition in which people obtain numbered tickets, each ticket having the chance of winning a prize. At a set time, the winners are drawn at random from a container holding a copy of every number. The drawn tickets are checked against a collection of prizes with numbers attached to them, and the holder of the ticket wins the prize.

The raffle is a popular game in many countries, and is often held to raise funds for a specific charity or event.

Process[edit]

Difference Between Raffles And Gambling Sites

A raffle may involve several separate prizes, possibly donated, with a different ticket drawn for each prize, so a purchaser of a ticket may not be attracted to a specific prize, but for the possibility of winning any of those offered. The draw for prizes may be held at a special event, with many onlookers and overseen by a club official or well-known person. In the prize draw, one ticket is drawn for the initial prize; that ticket is then left out of the container. A second ticket is then drawn for the next prize, and that ticket also is discarded, and so on. This continues until all prizes have been won.

A common practice for increasing revenue from ticket sales is to offer bulk sales of tickets, e.g., $10 per single ticket or $25 for three tickets, although this practice is illegal in some countries. In many places raffles are only legal for registered nonprofits.^{[citation needed]} Players tend to spend more money on bulk tickets believing they have a much better chance of winning. Since the tickets cost little to produce, and the prize expense has been set, the number of tickets sold creates little or no additional cost for the raffle holders.

Nonprofits who run raffles raise more money than more traditional ways of raising money because people are more willing to donate to an organization when they have a chance to win a prize.^{[citation needed]}

Tombola[edit]

Tombola is a raffle which originates in Southern Italy and which is mostly played at Christmas time. Prizes are often only of symbolic value. With the Italian massive emigration of the 19th and 20th centuries, the game was exported abroad and it took different forms and names such as Bingo.

Private raffle[edit]

The process may be employed, where legal, to dispose of a high-value item such as a horse, car or real estate. One example was American-Australian photographer Townsend Duryea's raffling off his yacht 'Coquette' in 1858.^[1]

Where the prize is a valuable work of art, the process may be termed an art union, particularly where the beneficiary is the originating artist. Australian artists who have disposed of their works in this way include Alfred Felton^[2] and James Ashton.^[3]

Worldwide[edit]

In the United Kingdom, raffles occasionally are held to circumvent licensing laws.^{[citation needed]} While only licensed premises are permitted to sell alcoholic beverages, there is no restriction on the offering of alcoholic beverages as prizes in raffles. At some events, attendees can enter a raffle where prizes include alcoholic drink(s). In the UK the term 'tombola' is used when the raffle tickets are placed in a barrel and tumbled before the winning tickets are drawn from the barrel. The tombola booth is commonly used as a fund raising event for local fetes.

In New Zealand and Australia, meat raffles are commonplace in pubs and registered clubs.^[4] Trays of meat or seafood are raffled to raise money for a cause, often a local sporting club. Similar raffles are held in Minnesota and Rhode Island.

Cash raffle[edit]

A cash raffle is when the prize is a fraction of the total of the earnings. These are sometimes referred to as '50/50' draws, with half of the money going to the raffle winner and half to organizers or a charity they are supporting, although the prize may not necessarily be equal to 50 percent of the earnings.^[5] Such raffles are illegal in some places, such as California (with limited exceptions).^[6]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^'Advertising'. South Australian Register. Adelaide. 30 November 1858. p. 1. Retrieved 28 January 2012 – via National Library of Australia.
2. ^W. S. Ransom (ed.) The Australian National Dictionary Oxford University Press, Melbourne 1988 ISBN0 19 554736 5
3. ^'Advertising'. Quiz and the Lantern. Adelaide. 21 October 1892. p. 12. Retrieved 26 January 2015 – via National Library of Australia.
4. ^'Country club'. The Canberra Times. 59 (17, 920). 21 October 1984. p. 17. Retrieved 24 April 2016 – via National Library of Australia.
5. ^'Raffle Terms & Conditions – Total Ticket $10,000 and Less'(PDF). Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission. Retrieved 2016-10-31.
6. ^'Nonprofit Raffles'. ca.gov. State of California Department of Justice. Retrieved June 27, 2019. What is the 90/10 rule? Does it apply to 50/50 raffles?