"An Act relating to charitable gaming. "

It is an important goal for us to ensure that charitable gaming is free of any perception of illegality. Charities in the past have lost substantial amounts of money due to theft and embezzlement by players, employees and other insalubrious individuals. Many charities find themselves frustrated when theft or embezzlement is not investigated or prosecuted. House Bill 477 is intended to make individuals responsible and accountable for their crimes, to provide the enabling authority to investigate and prosecute those who commit these crimes and to revitalize the good name of charitable gaming.

HB 477 also attempts to streamline the reapplication and fees for permittees by making the reapplication and fee schedule effective bi-annually instead of annually. The fees would reflect the change. There would be no reduction in revenue for the state.

Permittees currently report on a quarterly basis to the State Gaming Unit in the Department of Revenue, Tax Division. This requirement would not change. This would alleviate the mad scramble during the last weeks of December of each year, each permittee would not have to provide the annual report to the State Gaming Unit in the Department of Revenue, Tax Division - but instead would have to provide the summary report by the end of every two years. HB 477 would enable a more orderly process and also decrease the administrative effort on the part of the State Gaming Unit in the Department of Revenue, Tax Division.

Additionally, this procedure would save the charitable permitted organization time and money in its efforts to comply with the overall reporting requirement and also would allow the organization to conduct its internal audits within a reasonable timeframe.

I welcome your support.

Passage of HB 465 will make our waters safer to disaster and terrorism. I welcome your support.

# # #