![]() “A minimum charitable distribution requirement will likely put some bingo licensees out of the bingo business,” a November 2014 state Senate report concluded. Studies have predicted that requiring charities to actually make money on bingo could result in an even bigger shakeout to separate the game’s winners from its losers. ![]() The recent flurry of yanked bingo licenses “is in response to past concerns by members of the Legislature regarding bingo profits and whether or not charitable organizations are generating revenue through bingo.” While those efforts so far have failed, a Texas Lottery Commission spokeswoman said the agency has decided to start taking action on its own.Īlthough the commission always had the authority to deny a nonprofit a bingo license for failure to earn money, “this had not been acted upon by previous Charitable Bingo leadership,” Kelly Cripe said. In the face of concerns over ever-escalating bingo prizes and for-profit gaming businesses eating into the money meant to go to charity, legislators in recent years have tried to make bingo-playing organizations demonstrate that the game was being used for the purpose for which Texas voters approved it. “The law hasn’t changed,” said Stephen Fenoglio, an Austin attorney who represents many bingo charities. Yet it also appears to be the first time that Texas regulators have forced nonprofits out of the game for failing to earn money. And the game still earns many charities tens of thousands of dollars each to donate to good works annually. ![]() The number is relatively small - more than 600 organizations sponsored bingo last year. Over the past year and a half, the Texas Lottery Commission, which regulates bingo, has quietly moved to pull the gaming licenses of just under a dozen charities that were consistently losing money sponsoring bingo. The Houston-area Lions chapter isn’t the only nonprofit to lose its permission to gamble recently. The reason was strictly business: Instead of raising money to give away to charity, as Texas law requires, bingo actually had been costing the club thousands of dollars a year in losses. The fraternal organization’s permission to raise money by sponsoring bingo games was being yanked. Last year, the Houston Spring Branch Lions Club received some bad and unexpected news from the state of Texas.
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