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The Veterans of Foreign Wars Department of Pennsylvania, with a membership of nearly 60,000 combat veterans encompassing more than 400 posts, is a vibrant and vital part of our local communities. We provide safe havens for our veteran population -- venues for active-duty, honorably discharged, and retired military personnel to congregate, socialize, and bond -- and assist veterans with accessing support and vital federal benefits.
Individual VFW Posts across Pennsylvania improve local communities through beautification projects; donations to police, fire, and EMS departments; contributions to human service charities; hosting holiday events for children; student scholarships; disaster relief drives; patriotic events, and more. These activities take some burden off state and local government.
Faced with challenges in recruiting new veteran membership, many VFW posts have come to rely on revenue generated by small games of chance, such as paper pull tabs. We have also benefited from the revenue received from electronic games of skill. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court's recent ruling -- that skill games are in fact slot machines and may soon be illegal -- jeopardizes a vital revenue source and, by extension, the ability of many VFW posts to remain open.
While the legislature wrestles with the fallout of the Supreme Court decision and how to address skill games, legislators can provide immediate relief for veteran and fraternal organizations by modernizing Pennsylvania's small games of chance law to permit electronic pull tabs. Small Games of Chance is the only legal gaming in Pennsylvania specifically created to benefit charitable organizations.
Small games of chance have been a lifeline for charitable organizations since they were authorized by the legislature in 1988. Charitable gaming revenue supports ongoing operations of veterans' posts, while a portion must be used to support non-profit causes. This is how our VFW posts have been able to support so many community organizations over the years.
Last updated in 2013, Pennsylvania's Local Option Small Games of Chance Law, which limits veteran service organizations to only a handful of paper games, is woefully in need of modernization to provide additional options and close the funding gap that will come when the skills games decision takes effect in October.
Neighboring states that have modernized small games of chance laws to permit electronic pull tabs (e-tabs) have seen veteran post revenues increase by 40 percent on average.
States such as Ohio and Kentucky that authorized e-tabs have also seen significant membership growth for their VFW and American Legion posts among younger veterans.
Legislators may disagree on how best to address skill games following the court's ruling, but I think both sides agree that our veterans deserve support. While the state House and Senate wrestle with this policy issue, we urge them to act now to modernize the state's small games of chance law to provide relief for veteran and fraternal clubs and the charitable organizations we support.
James "Jim" Brown is the state commander of Veterans of Foreign Wars Department of Pennsylvania. For more information, visit www.playpaforcharity.org.