Local groups: Make-up law can’t replace skill games

Act would provide fire companies unlimited permission to conduct online prize raffles

Two leaders of the kind of local organizations targeted by a proposed new law designed to compensate for the banishment of skill games think the new law will fall far short of making up for skill game losses.

Passed with bipartisan support and likely to be signed soon by Gov. Josh Shapiro, the Small Games of Chance Act would provide unlimited permission for fire companies to conduct online raffles, while increasing the seven-day limit for prize money awarded by fire companies, veterans groups and other civic groups from $35,000 to $60,000 and also allowing licensees to increase the amounts they retain for operating expenses, according to a CapitolWire report.

"Will it help? Yes," said Jim Musselman, chief of the Friendship Fire Company of Roaring Spring. But "no way" will it make up for the $100,000 the company would have earned this year with its skill machines.

The expanded seven-day maximum take may mean "a little extra" income, said Duncansville VFW Commander Bobby Moore. But being able to sell more rip tickets isn't going to make up for the loss of the skills machines' power to draw customers into his building, Moore said.

Online raffles can be lucrative, Musselman said, citing a program that was earning $1 million a year for a fire company to the northwest of Blair County.

But not only was that online operation illegal, it also required the company to hire people to conduct it because it was labor-intensive, Musselman said.

His own company will "look into" such a program when it becomes legal, but it would be hard, given that the members are already busy doing what they need to do "to keep the department moving," he said.

Everything connected with the issue is frustrating to Musselman: the state having let a yearlong COVID-era waiver allowing for online raffles to expire; its ignoring the illegality of the operation being conducted by the fire company to the northwest; and especially its failure to rescue skill games through legislation after the state Supreme Court ruled those machines were illegal in June.

There are also complications connected with the kind of small games with which organizations will be able to generate additional prize money.

"Someone has to pay federal tax on those prizes (when they're) over a certain amount," Musselman said.

If that responsibility falls on the prize recipient, the recipient must pay 25%, and the fire company must issue the recipient an IRS reporting form, he said.

If the fire company pays the tax, it's 33%.

The sensible strategy is to raise the ticket price to account for the government's cut, he said.

"There's a lot of logistics behind it," he said.

"It's disheartening to see our government working against us," he said.

Fortunately, Friendship has kept itself from becoming dependent on its skill games revenue -- using that money only for special "wish list" projects, like creating an accessible restroom, he said.

To take advantage of the higher seven-day max revenue from its small games of chance, Duncansville VFW would need to attract more people, Moore said.

But rip tickets are unlikely to bring in those additional people because "they're not as fun as sitting playing a game," he said.

The seven machines that provided that fun -- and provided perhaps $2,000 to $3,000 a week for the club -- are gone.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.