Well, the raffle is off. Please disregard my previous post. Fortunately for me, my cousin Wayne is a frequent visitor of my site, so he was one of the first to read my last post and promptly informed me that it might just be illegal to hold a raffle without a permit. I quickly googled the question and there it was. Click on the thumbnail if you want to read the official document.

Apparently, in Wisconsin, only Religious, Veteran, Fraternal, Service, or Charitable organizations can hold a raffle, if they obtain a Raffle License. You can’t just decide to have one and have one. It says, specifically, “Is it not legal for an individual, business, or national/out-of-state organization to conduct raffles in Wisconsin.” Wow. I had no clue. Apparently this is a form of gambling.

It also states, however, that “a silent auction is not a raffle and does not require a raffle license”, so that’s something to consider I guess. Back to square one. At least we learned something today.

Thank you, Wayne. You probably saved us a bunch of legal trouble, not to mention the trouble we might have had trying to figure out how to return everyone’s money to them once the raffle had started.