Kat Raffle

[chay03]

This idea crossed my mind earlier while me and a coworker were talking about selling my Kat 600.

Is doing a raffle legal here in Cali? I was thinking of asking for $25 a ticket thinking somebody could walk away with a kat for $25. The goal for me is to make enough money to either get a new Kat 750 or even maybe a Busa.

Not too sure if this is really something I want to get into but opinions appreciated.


Thanks,

[bigbike-r]

well it all depends on how many ppl are gonna turn up. make a few enquiries dont raffle it off and then only have 1 guy turn up and take ya bike for $25............lol

aswith any raffle its a risk your taking.

[chay03]

I was thinking of doing it like this:

Ask all the people I know to buy a ticket or who might be interested. Have them ask their friends and family members. Generate a list of all the people who are interested. When the list is at minumum number of people, start collecting cash, and confim a raffle date, but disclose that there is a requirement of a min. number of people. I would then have the person keep the ticket and stub, I would of course log the number down in a journal as welll as name, number, address, email.

Upon arrival to the official drawing, they dump their stub in a raffle container, noting there info on back. Then have somebody's young kid come up and pull the winning ticket. Then take care of all paperwork.

It sounds easy enough, but you know its easier said than done.

There would also be the possibility others could enter due to word of mouth.

Like I said, I'm just trying get enough cash to get a bigger better bike, and someone else could walk away with mine for $25 or more depeding on how many tickets they buy. Figure $25 is reasonable.

[philwecksr]

I've seen alot of car raffles at auto shows and the like that have a stipulation that unless X many tickets are sold then the raffle won't take place. So if you want to get, say 5K out of this, then make a stipulation that the raffle will only happen if 20 tickets are sold (10K i.e. new busa would then be 40 tickets.....)

This is not to say that its legal, I have NO idea about laws on this sort of thing....

[chay03]

A Stipulation is exactly what I was thinking. But 5K/25 is 200 tickets, that'll be tough and 400 for busa.

I really want to make sure this is legal. Don't want get myself in trouble with the law or IRS.

But I figure if its a close knit group of people, shouldn't be anything to worry about.

[iwannadie]

A Stipulation is exactly what I was thinking. But 5K/25 is 200 tickets, that'll be tough and 400 for busa.

I really want to make sure this is legal. Don't want get myself in trouble with the law or IRS.

But I figure if its a close knit group of people, shouldn't be anything to worry about.

how do you explain to the irs the sudden 10 grand(busa?) showing up in your bank account?

[thecynic]

how do you explain to the irs the sudden 10 grand(busa?) showing up in your bank account?

Selling oranges on the freeway entrance?

[Jax]

Here is an example of what you can do for your raffle:

A young city boy, Kenny, moved to the country and bought a donkey from an old farmer for $100.00. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day.

The next day, the farmer drove up and said, "Sorry son, but I have some bad news. The donkey died."

Kenny replied, "Well then, just give me my money back."

The farmer said, "Can't do that. I went and spent it already."

Kenny said, "Okay then, just unload the dead donkey."

The farmer asked, "What ya gonna do with him"?

Kenny said, "I'm going to raffle him off."

"You can't raffle off a dead donkey!" the farmer says.

"Sure I can. Watch me. I just won't tell anybody he's dead." Kenny said.

A month later the farmer met up with Kenny and asked, "What happened with that dead donkey"?

"I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars a piece and made a profit of $898.00."

"Didn't anyone complain"? the farmer asked.

"Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back."

Kenny grew up and eventually became the chairman of Enron.

[paradoxmd]

A Stipulation is exactly what I was thinking. But 5K/25 is 200 tickets, that'll be tough and 400 for busa.

I really want to make sure this is legal. Don't want get myself in trouble with the law or IRS.

But I figure if its a close knit group of people, shouldn't be anything to worry about.

how do you explain to the irs the sudden 10 grand(busa?) showing up in your bank account?

He sold his bike.

[philwecksr]

A Stipulation is exactly what I was thinking. But 5K/25 is 200 tickets, that'll be tough and 400 for busa.

I really want to make sure this is legal. Don't want get myself in trouble with the law or IRS.

But I figure if its a close knit group of people, shouldn't be anything to worry about.

LOL. Hurray for my engineering math. That calculation had a safety factor of 10 built in btw....heh

[The CyberPoet]

I suspect that you'll need the services of a lawyer for this one, and even with legal help, may not be able to get around the requirements enough to do it, since you are benefitting directly (rather than the proceeds going to a charity).

Keep us posted on how it works out!

PS - a friend-of-a-friend was selling raffle tickets for a brand new confederate motorcycle last year & early this year in the four months leading up to Bike Week (Daytona). He sold them door-to-door, as well to people in the mall, people he knew, etc. After bike-week, the guy who hired him (and had hired his gf, as well as a dozen other people) blew out of town and disappeared. Turns out that while there was a raffle at Bike Week for a Confederate (being sponsored by the Daytona Beach Chamber of Commerce [DBCC] -- which lended credibility to the whole scam), this guy had appearantly bought one ticket to the DBCC raffle and then was selling raffle tickets he printed (high-quality printing) to the chance to win that bike if his own raffle ticket was a winner...

As far I've been told, the cops are still looking for him, although I'm not sure who tipped them off (or how they might have known he was a swindler). Anyone who took part could visit the DBCC website and see they weren't listed as the "winning" ticket (since the winner was announced), which would theoretically close out the loopholes (unless he sold a ticket with the same number as the winning ticket??).

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

[KRAZYKAT]

Here is an example of what you can do for your raffle:

A young city boy, Kenny, moved to the country and bought a donkey from an old farmer for $100.00. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day.

The next day, the farmer drove up and said, "Sorry son, but I have some bad news. The donkey died."

Kenny replied, "Well then, just give me my money back."

The farmer said, "Can't do that. I went and spent it already."

Kenny said, "Okay then, just unload the dead donkey."

The farmer asked, "What ya gonna do with him"?

Kenny said, "I'm going to raffle him off."

"You can't raffle off a dead donkey!" the farmer says.

"Sure I can. Watch me. I just won't tell anybody he's dead." Kenny said.

A month later the farmer met up with Kenny and asked, "What happened with that dead donkey"?

"I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars a piece and made a profit of $898.00."

"Didn't anyone complain"? the farmer asked.

"Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back."

Kenny grew up and eventually became the chairman of Enron.

THATS GREAT!! JAX IS MY NEW HERO!

[iwannadie]

A Stipulation is exactly what I was thinking. But 5K/25 is 200 tickets, that'll be tough and 400 for busa.

I really want to make sure this is legal. Don't want get myself in trouble with the law or IRS.

But I figure if its a close knit group of people, shouldn't be anything to worry about.

how do you explain to the irs the sudden 10 grand(busa?) showing up in your bank account?

He sold his bike.

ya but he didnt sell it. if they ask for a bill of sale or something he has no thing but a list of raffle ticket sales. also the person who bought the winning raffle ticket might be brought into it. suddenly their 20$ raffle is showing up as a 10k$ bike purchase?

also if you win a raffle do you pay taxs on it or the prize?

seems to me when its not a charity then its like illegal gambling?

[Yellow2002Kat]

Short answer is no. Without a heck of a lot of effort you can't legally raffle off your bike.

Here's where it gets scary - HELL HAS FROZEN OVER!!!! iwannadie is making sense .

He's right, a private raffle is considered illegal gambling in almost every state.

One possible way to mitigate concerns about legality would be to ask for a specific price on on each raffle ticket (i.e., $25). However, you's also have to stamp the tickets with "no payment required" (or something like that) and you'd have to be willing to give a ticket to anybody asking for one even if they won't pay for it. It's kinda like contests you see all the time where "there is no purchase required to enter". They have to throw that clause in to keep it legal.

Even with that said, how do you keep everything on the level? By incurring considerable expense, that's how .

You'd already have to spend some $$$ to have legal raffle tickets made. You can't just make tickets in PowerPoint and print them out. Ever see all that tiny legal mumbo jumbo on the back of a raffle ticket? You'd also need legal advice about how to hold other people's money, what sort of contract you'd be making with ticket buyers, how to ensure a fair and impartial drawing of the winner (are you gonna hire PWC to oversee the drawing?), etc., etc., etc.

After all that you'd still need to ensure enough people entered. If you don't meet the minimum required number of entrants there's gonna be a nice amount of paperwork involved in returning everyone's money.

Then there are the tax implications. The winner is gonna have to pay taxes on the bike, and the value will be determined by the number of tickets you sell. Let's say all the stars align and you sell 1000 tickets at $25 each. You'd have to 1099 the winner for $25K. They would not be happy about that surprise extra income there gonna have to pay taxes on.

A raffle is really a bad idea for a private party. That's exactly why you most often see raffles held by organized charities. Way too much work for the average Joe.

Forget the raffle idea. If you wanna get rid of your bike just sell it. It's much easier.

*Standard disclaimer* I am not a lawer nor is any of the above to be considered legal advice.