As the gaming industry in Wyoming continues to boom, lawmakers want to get a hold on lesser-known and currently unregulated forms of gambling. This week, the Legislature’s Select Committee on Gaming considered raffles, local gambling and the impacts of online casinos.
A bill draft called charitable raffles and drawings would legalize and regulate raffles. Current state law allows for charitable raffles or drawings, but doesn’t define either.
Nicholas Larramendy, director of the Wyoming Gaming Commission, referred to some raffles as “a form of gambling” at the select committee’s August 30 meeting. He said traditional raffles are legal, but progressive raffles, such as Queen of Hearts, are essentially gambling because the pot keeps growing until someone wins the jackpot.
Larramendy described four considerations that are often used to define a raffle. First, each participant buys a ticket or pays something of value. Secondly, the winner is picked by chance. Third, the prize is awarded to the winner. And fourth, there must be an equal probability for an individual ticket being selected.
Progressive raffles lose equal probability as the game continues on, conflicting with the fourth principle.
The challenge in trying to enforce any law around raffles would be the commission’s lack of ability to regulate them. Businesses and groups would have to have licenses through the Gaming Commission and make the commission aware of raffling events. The commission could then demand refunds for a raffle event if the receipts show discrepancies in the distribution of the winner’s prize or charity funds, but nothing in statute gives the commission the power to ask for those receipts. The commission would have to open a criminal investigation to find out if gambling took place.
The select committee spent some time asking the director how to strengthen his commission's power, how ticket sales are distributed and donated after a raffle, and discussing whether or not they want to legalize progressive raffles, which would be an expansion of gambling.
Ultimately, lawmakers had more questions than answers and voted to lay back the bill. They’ll review it during a future meeting. Until then, they asked the Gaming Commission to collect more data and the Legislative Service Office (LSO) to round up similar laws from other states for review.
Similarly, another draft bill the select committee is considering, called online casinos and sweepstakes prohibited, faces enforcement challenges. This bill aims to add online casino games and sweepstakes platforms to the state’s definition of "professional gambling." Lawmakers heard from interactive gaming companies like Virtual Gaming World, which argued that a ban on these kinds of mobile games would stifle competition in an emerging market.
Legal reps from Virtual Gaming World argued that this bill’s definitions were too broad and would ban gamification of online promotions, like spinning a wheel for a discount before purchasing an item or entering a sweepstakes that promotes a product.
However, the main concern for lawmakers is international gaming platforms where Wyomingites might be exposing themselves to big losses.
Laramendy said that offshore companies were seeing “people investing thousands of dollars,” only for users to find their account suddenly closed with no practical or legal path to reparations for stolen funds.
Lawmakers offered to move the bill forward, but ultimately the committee decided they lacked the information needed to advance the legislation. Some lawmakers were unsure if the online sweepstakes and gamification didn't fall under the state’s current definition of gambling, while others were unsure how to give the Gaming Commission the teeth to take on offshore gambling operations.
The Select Committee on Gaming is scheduled to meet again in Evanston on Sept. 29.
