Colorado Secretary of State logo - cube with a C in it

Colorado Secretary
of State Jena Griswold
www.coloradosos.gov | www.sos.state.co.us

Colorado Secretary of State logo - cube with a C in it

Colorado Secretary
of State Jena Griswold
www.coloradosos.gov

Picture of Secretary of State Jena Griswold

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Colorado Secretary of State logo - cube with a C in it

Colorado
Secretary of State
Jena Griswold

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Bingo & Raffle Newsletter

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Quarterly Reports Due April 30

If you held a 2020 license at any time during the 1st quarter 2020, you MUST submit your LE-21 Quarterly Report form by April 30, 2020. The report covers the period from January 1 through March 31, 2020. Reports filed after this date could be assessed a $50 fine.

Filing quarterly reports using our online system is cheaper than filing paper forms. If needed, all paper forms can still be found on our website, including all daily forms.

Please make sure to provide copies of daily forms for progressive bingo (LE-34a), progressive pull tabs (LE-31a), and progressive raffles (LE-34c) with your submission. The progressive bingo forms should be updated after each bingo occasion and the pull tab and raffle forms should be updated regularly.

If you have any questions or concerns, contact Lisa Marty at lisa.marty@coloradosos.gov.


Thanks to Online Filers

To those of you who have already taken the opportunity to move to online filing – thank you! Early indicators from our postcard mailing a couple of months back show a positive trend in moving to online filing. We currently are at 76% of all bingo-raffle licensees filing online!

Remember – It’s cheaper, quicker and we’re here to help.

If you need any assistance with filing, give us a call or drop us a line – we’re happy to help you take advantage of this filing method!


2020 Bingo-Raffle Licenses

If you plan to conduct charitable gaming activities in 2020, you can apply for your annual license at any time during 2020 via the online or paper application form (please allow 7-10 working days processing time). This applies to both new licenses and renewals. Licenses can be printed directly from the summary page if you apply online (once your filing is accepted) or e-mailed to the organizational e-mail address, if provided, on the paper form. To minimize unnecessary delays, please review your application before submitting. Sign into your account if you wish to apply online or visit our forms page to download the paper license application. New applicants can start the process from here. Please contact Program Manager Shannon Bee by email at shannon.bee@coloradosos.gov with any questions.


Bingo/Raffle Advisory Board

The Colorado Bingo-Raffle Advisory Board makes recommendations to the Secretary of State's office in its regulation of the charitable gaming sector. All members of the public are encouraged to attend and contribute to this important dialogue. The last meeting of the Board was held on March 6, 2019. The next meeting is scheduled for:

When: TBD
Where: TBD

Though there are no current meetings scheduled, if you have any topics that you’d like addressed by the Board, please reach out to them to have your idea noted for discussion. Their contact information can be found here.

If you have any questions, please feel free to send us an email at public.licensing@coloradosos.gov.

We would also like to remind current members of the Board that there is a statutory requirement that they complete yearly Board training. This training is available here under Bingo-Raffle Advisory Board training./p>


Bingo/Raffle Financial Reports.

Our office is committed to using our state-wide reach to provide timely and accurate data to the bingo/raffle community. We use the information you provide on quarterly reports to publish two informative datasets on our website.

  • Aggregate revenue report: this report contains a "roll-up" of total revenue, expense, and profit data for charitable gaming in the state.
  • Revenue by licensee: this report contains similar information broken down by individual bingo/raffle licensees. We began publishing this report in response to a request from our Bingo/Raffle Advisory Board.

Our website currently contains reports for calendar years 2013 through 2019. Reports are updated quarterly.

E-Filing Quarterly Reports

In an effort to protect employees and customers alike, all in-person services are currently suspended as we comply with the Governor’s stay-at-home order. We would like to encourage you to try e-fling your quarterly reports (and if you need assistance, please contact us at one of the methods listed below and we can assist with any issues). Online quarterly reports are structured just like the paper report, except now it will take the place of the paper report you used to file via US Mail, which is currently only being delivered to our offices once weekly, and with a significantly increased turnaround time in processing by our office.

There is an instruction document that will assist you in completing the quarterly report that can be found here, and if you have not yet created an online account for your organization, please contact our office at 303 869 4910 to walk through setting up the account.

If you have any questions, please feel free to call or email Lisa or Denise for assistance.

Lisa: lisa.marty@coloradosos.gov Denise: denise.lamberth@coloradosos.gov

We look forward to working with you to make the change to online filing a simple process.


Special Notice Regarding Quarterly Report Filing Deadlines

TO ALL OUR LICENSEES :

Our office understands that your organization may currently have limited access to your information for filing of your quarterly reports. However, the dates for filing of these reports are set by Statute, and our office does not have the ability to alter these dates. We do understand that you may not have the ability to access all of your records you would normally need to complete the filing. Therefore, we are asking that you complete your quarterlies to the best of your ability. Your organization can amend or update quarterly reports as needed once you gain access to your records again. If you need further assistance, or have questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact our office. We can work with your organization on an individual basis as needed.


A Note From the Secretary of State's Office Regarding the Upcoming U.S. Census

Just as a reminder, the U.S. Census is coming:

  • The Census is important, easy and safe.
  • You can fill out your Census when you receive a postcard in the mail or a form at your door. You can also fill it out online at www.2020census.gov.
  • The Census is a count of all people living in the United States and is conducted every 10 years
  • Colorado is allocated $13B per year in federal funding from 55 federal programs statewide (healthcare, school lunch programs, business loans, Pell Grants, public libraries, WIC, Public housing, SNAP, veterans programs, etc.)
  • Colorado stands to gain an additional Congressional seat if we obtain a full count in Census 2020
  • 9 questions, takes 10 minutes, but impacts the next 10 years of your life


New: Online Filing a Bingo-Raffle License Tutorial

Our office has released a new tutorial for filing your new or renewing Bingo-Raffle license. This tutorial will take you through page-by-page instructions on how to complete the online form for Bingo-Raffle license application. This way, you can go through the tutuorial before, or while going through the application process. You can access the tutorial dirctly here.


Year End Reporting

The start to 2020 has been difficult with the stay-at-home order by the Governor which resulted in the closing of bingo and pull-tab activities and decisions with regard to holding raffles. We would like to share some encouraging news with our graph for 2019. You can see on the aggregate report here that over the past 4 years the overall net profit on the amount wagered has continued to increase. This number has increased from 20% in 2016 and 2017 to 24% in 2019. With continued interest in progressive games (bingo, raffle and pull tabs) as well as online raffles we are encouraged and look forward, as you do, to getting 2020 back up and running.

 

Games Manager Training

Your organization must have at least one certified Games Manager in order to run charitable games. We recommend licensees maintain more than one Games Manager. To support this, we offer in-person and online Games Manager training courses.

Sign up for the online eLearning course on our website.

All live classes have currently been cancelled due to COVID 19. Please go to the this link for further updates on live classes.


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