Company wants Joliet to OK charity raffle devices for bars

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Updated: March 2, 2012 8:19AM

JOLIET — A gaming entrepreneur wants to set up charity raffle devices in Joliet bars.

The small electronic devices could generate $108,000 a year for the city if allowed in 15 bars, according to a proposal presented to the Joliet City Council Finance Committee in January.

“We feel Joliet has good potential,” said John Martin, a Joliet resident who is involved in placing similar raffle devices in two bars in Bolingbrook and Channahon.

The finance committee was receptive to the idea but has referred it to city staff for review.

The city attorney, meanwhile, is questioning certain aspects of the raffle system, including instant payouts and city control over which charities would benefit.

“We’re starting to get away from the traditional raffle that most charities use for fundraising,” said City Attorney Jeff Plyman, who has just begun to review the proposal.

How it works

Martin, whose business is called Bar Stool Gaming, partners with a company called Video King to put portable touch screens on bar tops. Customers pay up to $2 a play to try to win as much as $1,000. Bar staff makes the payouts instead of having the cash come in the future, as with a traditional raffle drawing.

The same system is used in other parts of Illinois as well as other states, Martin said.

“Every play is a raffle,” Martin said. “It’s a 24-number electronic raffle game so every play will show whether it’s a winning raffle or not.”

What the customer spends is distributed between the host city, charities selected by the city, the bar and the two businesses that run it.

Bar Stool Gaming and Video King split 50 percent of the revenue. The charities get 25 percent, the city gets 15 percent, and the bar gets 10 percent.

“The revenue would be the big appeal — not only what we get, but the charities that are earmarked for it,” said Joliet City Councilman Michael Turk, who chairs the finance committee.

Noting one possible group of nonprofit organizations that could benefit, Turk said the city could designate the Rialto Square Theatre, Joliet Area Historical Museum and Billie Limacher Bicentennial Park as beneficiaries of the bar raffles.

The city, which subsidizes all three operations, cut their combined funding by $260,000 this year to balance the 2012 budget.

Charities earn 25 percent

Martin said selected charities can benefit greatly from the program.

His presentation to the finance committee included a letter from Robert Kalnicky, executive director of the Community Service Council of Northern Will County, saying in part that money from the raffle “has helped our agency cover some costs, allowing more of the funding we do receive to go directly to client support.”

The agency is one of two that receives money from the charity raffle device in Bolingbrook.

In Channahon, the selected charity is the Channahon Fire Protection District, which is building a new boat launch with proceeds from the raffle.

Plyman, however, questions whether the city should control raffles to the point of selecting which charities benefit.

“The city’s role is not to pick which charities benefit from this,” he said. “We license raffles that are brought to us by charitable organizations. … The city raffle process is available to all charitable groups, and that’s the way it has to be.”

Martin said he brought the system to Joliet for consideration in large part because of the city’s budget troubles and the potential to help nonprofit groups that do not get the support they used to receive from the city.

“What we decided to do,” he said, “is help out cities and charities.”