Re: Dakota raffle?

From: Cal Hyer (clhyer@hom.net)
Date: Fri Mar 17 2000 - 05:02:57 EST


Jon, I'm not an attorney - but I think you would run into trouble with a
raffle, unless the DML is a non-profit entity. It may be different in
Canada. Given about 700 members on the DML, wanting to raise about
$35,000 - could you legally sell everyone a t-shirt or some such for $50
each, one of which would also contain the keys to a new Dak? (We pay $3
for a $1 box of girl scout cookies, but then we don't have a chance for
anything but a few extra pounds) I don't know if that would be legal or
not.
Cal

----- Original Message -----
From: Jon Steiger <stei0302@cs.fredonia.edu>
To: Dakota Mailing List <dakota-truck@buffnet.net>
Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2000 6:03 PM
Subject: DML: Dakota raffle?

>
> I just thought I'd throw this idea out to the list...
>
> At the latest Toronto DML meet, we went to a car show, and some of us
> noticed that there were quite a few clubs and organizations there who were
> raffling off cars. I think it may have been Jason who first made the
> connection to the DML raffling off a Dak, but the rest of us caught on
> pretty quick. :-) I'm not sure if anyone was speaking in jest or not,
but
> I took it seriously; I had never even considered this before.
Unfortunately,
> I don't have any experience with this sort of thing, so I don't know what
> sort of pitfalls to watch out for, or if it is even worthwhile trying.
>
> So... I was wondering what everyone thought of the idea of raffling off
> a Dakota to bring in money for the DML? I'm not sure how many tickets
> are usually sold for these things, or what the price is, but if we were
> to sell 10,000 tickets at $5 each or 5,000 at $10 each, that'd bring in
> $50,000; enough money to cover the cost of a Dak and keep the DML running
> for a loooooong time! Of course, we would probably really only need
> about $30,000 to be safe, $40,000 might be a better number to shoot for.
> That might net $5-15K. Still a big chunk of change.
>
> In order to keep the initial cost to the DML low ($0) my idea would be
> to raffle off a brand new Dak. That way, nobody has to put any money down
> initially to buy a vehicle, and the winner can have the Dak optioned out
> any way they want (4x4, R/T, QC, whatever!), since it wouldn't actually be
> ordered until the raffle was over. Also, that might be a convenient way
> to get around local emissions standards and equipment laws. For example,
> if we already had a US Dak and a Canadian won, there would be the hassle
of
> installing DRLs, the owner would have to put up with miles vs kilometers,
> etc. If we order after the raffle, we could just order the Dak through a
> dealer which is local to the winner.
>
> I don't know what sort of time limit there should be, but obviously if
> we don't sell enough tickets to cover the cost of a Dak, we couldn't do
it;
> in that case, I thought perhaps everyone's money could be returned.
(Though
> that's going to involve some postage expense, so that is definitely not a
> good option.) Maybe it should just run until all of the tickets are sold,
> or we hit a certain dollar figure, however long it takes? Obviously,
unless
> every DML were to spend $60/ticket, this isn't going to be restricted to
> just the DML, either. I thought perhaps tickets could be sold via the web
> site, E-bay, auto shows across the country, etc.
>
>
> I don't know that this would happen anytime soon, right now I'm just
> putting out some feelers and getting opinions. If anyone has any first
> hand experience with running a raffle of this type, I'd especially like to
> hear from you. Are there any federal/state laws regarding raffles? (Is
> it considered gambling?) Is it legal to raffle off something you don't
> actually have? :-)
>
>
> -Jon-
>
> .--- jon@dakota-truck.net -- or --
stei0302@cs.fredonia.edu ------------.
> | Jon Steiger * AOPA, DoD, EAA, MP Race Team, NMA, SPA, USUA * RP-SEL
|
> | '92 Ram 150 4x4 V8, '96 Dakota V8, '96 Intruder 1400, '96 FireFly 447
|
> `---------------------------- http://www.cs.fredonia.edu/~stei0302/ ---'
>
>
>



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