2 weeks Ago
Leaders representing scores of nonprofits, from groups that run homeless shelters and brain-injury treatment centers, to those training service dogs, said setting a cap of $50,000 in revenue from charity gambling would threaten their very survival. Susan Ford is executive director of My Friend’s Place, a homeless shelter in Dover that serves 30 people every day with an annual budget of $500,000. The shelter received $135,000 last year from gambling that included bingo and charity casino dates.
“This bill would cripple our agency,” Ford said. “People will die if we are not there. I can’t express how much this bill would crucify us.
” Rep. Richard Ames, D-Jaffrey, the sponsor of HB 531 , said it’s not fair that 800 charities were picked to benefit from as many as 10 gambling dates a year while nearly 9,000 other nonprofits receive no gambling revenue. The IRS listed 9,688 active tax-exempt organizations in New Hampshire.
“Those charities not on the list across the state do not benefit from this revenue stream at all,” Ames told the House Ways and Means Committee during a hearing on his bill Tuesday. “Putting a limit in would buy time for figuring out a long-term solution that would work.” Legalizing betting on "historic horse racing" machines four years ago has led to an explosion in profits for the 10 charity casinos that have them.
The Legislature allowed 18 locations to have the slot-machine-like machines and kept in place a monopoly for them as exclusive operators for another six years. Charities get 35% of revenue from games of chance such as high-stakes poker games and 8.75% of profit from HHR gambling; the state gets 10% and 16%, respectively.
Last year the 800 charities with legalized gambling dates received $31.2 million. Under Ames’s bill, all money over $50,000 in profit for each charity would go to the Education Trust Fund to support state aid to public schools.
All profit from traditional lottery games such as scratch tickets and Powerball jackpots currently goes to public school aid. The Lottery Commission said of 64 of the 698 charities that get HHR money received more than $50,000 last year. Among the 815 charities that benefit from games of chance, 176 received more than $50,000 last year.
If passed, Ames’s bill over the next state budget year would move $18.6 million to school aid — more than half of what charities got in 2023. “We consider this to be a tax on nonprofits,” said Mike Apfelberg, president of the United Way of Greater Nashua.
“We are not opposed to the cap per se; we are opposed to taking the money away from the (nonprofit) sector.” The Krempels Brain Injury Center in Portsmouth got in on the ground floor in 2011 as one of the first benefactors of gambling at a former dog track in Seabrook. In 2019, new owners and casino gambling developers opened The Brook charity casino on that site and built it into one of the state's most profitable charitable gaming facilities.
Last year, the Krempels Center received $160,000. “We have been able to maintain that relationship,” said Terry Hyland Jr., Krempels' director of community relations and development officer.
“It’s never been a given. It is an annual question mark if the funding will continue.” Ames served on a commission studying charitable gambling that put a spotlight on the issue.
But that commission’s chairman, former state Rep. Patrick Abrami of Stratham, opposed Ames's bill. “Does a Little League team need $150,000? No,” Abrami said.
“There is no question we need to do something about this.” Abrami said the issue needs more study. “Good luck trying to dismantle it; it’s helping too many organizations,” Abrami said, adding there are some charities that do “really need $100,000, $150,000” to thrive.
Last week, the same House committee voted 16-0 to recommend passing a bill ( HB 328 ) to recreate a new charity gaming commission and give it 10 years to do its work. There were 445 who signed up online against the bill while only 8 favored it. "While I don't agree that excess funds should be handed to the Lottery Commission, I think the idea of a cap is smart as long as more nonprofits can take advantage of this program which is currently very imbalanced and benefits fewer organizations than it should," wrote Mary Jenkins of Goffstown.
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