HORRY COUNTY -- The South Carolina State Senate has approved a bill that would allow churches, schools and charities to hold raffles to raise money.
Playing monopoly on your kitchen table is technically illegal in South Carolina, and so are most dice and card games. Currently, the only legal raffle in the state is the lottery.
As for raffles to raise money, the legislature is taking the first steps to make those legal, though charities have already been using them for years.
Schools raffle off new cars, civic groups hold raffles on a regular basis, it's hardly a secret. Myrtle Beach attorney George Cox, a founding member of the Grand Strand Optimist Club that holds a raffle every week, says the law prohibiting the games makes no sense. "Everybody does them and quite frankly law enforcement isn't interested even in giving attention to the laws that are on the books."
The bill that just passed in the Senate would allow churches and charities to hold up to four raffles a year. Some clubs hold them more often than that, but Cox doesn't think the four-times a year rule will be a problem. "I think these are big fundraisers they're talking about, with perhaps hundred dollar ticket prices and things like that."
A few years ago, the Coastal South Carolina chapter of the Red Cross planned a raffle fundraiser, to the point of working out the publicity and even printing tickets. Then they found out it was illegal and cancelled it immediately, the kind of problem that doesn't happen to chapters in other states. "When I see some organization raise a large amount of money with a raffle, then I do have to question how they can do it and we can't," said Angela Nicholas, Executive Director of the Coastal SC chapter of the Red Cross.
Don C. Hall is president of the Myrtle Beach Kiwanis Club and heads the Boys and Girls Club. Neither group has done raffles before, but Hall says they'd like to have that option. "It's currently not a tool that's available to us, but we're excited at the possibility that this may be something that will add to our arsenal."
Cox says it's time the state comes to grips with reality over raffles and similar games. "A few dollars in a raffle, there's no victim here. In fact usually the beneficiary is some charity or some people that really need it."
The bill to legalize raffles still has to pass in the House, be signed by the governor and then be put up before the voters because it requires changing the constitution. So it's a long way from becoming law.
If the question of legalizing raffles was put on the ballot, would you vote yes or no? Leave your thoughts below by posting a comment.
