50/50 For All

California · Penal Code 320.5 & 320.6

If it’s good enough for the Dodgers, it’s good enough for the food bank.

California runs two charitable raffle programs. One moves millions. One is dead. The difference is a single number — and we already know how to fix it.

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$96M raised by pro sports 50/50 since 2016•$48M delivered to charity•23 years since CA published nonprofit raffle data•200,000 nonprofits stuck under the 90% rule•~20 sports teams allowed to run 50/50•
$96M raised by pro sports 50/50 since 2016•$48M delivered to charity•23 years since CA published nonprofit raffle data•200,000 nonprofits stuck under the 90% rule•~20 sports teams allowed to run 50/50•
Since 2016

Pro sports teams have delivered

$0M
to California charities — out of $0M in raffle receipts, every dollar reported and published annually.
Peak year: 2018 — $5.3M to charity from 14 nonprofit foundations.
Two programs, two outcomes

Same state. Same oversight agencies. Completely different results.

Penal Code 320.6 · Sports teams

Alive and running.

Around twenty pro sports nonprofits can run 50/50 raffles. Half to the winner, half to charity. Every dollar reported, every year published.

Gross receipts
$0M
To charity
$0M
Filings
0
Transparency
Annual
Penal Code 320.5 · Every other nonprofit

Effectively shut down.

200,000 California nonprofits face a 90% rule that leaves nothing to pay the printer, the software, or the person counting tickets. So the program died the slow way.

Last aggregate report
2003
Years dark
0
IRS 990 sample, annual gaming
~$93K*
Transparency
None

*From a sample of 302 CA nonprofits most likely to conduct gaming, excluding one outlier bingo hall.

The argument

The fix is already on the shelf.

In October 2023, Governor Newsom signed SB 650, authored by Senator Bill Dodd. The bill made the 50/50 sports raffle program permanent. The Giants Community Fund alone has served more than 150,000 kids on the strength of those proceeds.

Take the framework made permanent for the sports teams and hand it to the rest. Same split. Same oversight. Same transparency.

When the 90% rule was written, tracking a raffle meant a shoebox and a paper ledger. The worry was money going missing on the way to the cause. That worry was reasonable then. It is not reasonable now. Every ticket can be numbered, every dollar traced from buyer to beneficiary in real time, on a phone, for pennies.

A legacy isn’t the bill you passed. It’s the bill that came next because yours worked.

Take part

This is a one-person effort. It won’t stay that way if people see it.