Nonprofits have a significant, far-reaching and oft overlooked impact on the American economy.
Nonprofits employ 12.3 million people with over $826 billion to the U.S. economy through salaries, benefits & payroll taxes and nearly $1 trillion spent for goods and services every year.
The casino/gambling industry contributes $261 billion to the U.S. economy, employing 1.8 million people in 40 states, generating $40.8 billion in federal, state and local tax revenues. via www.americangaming.org
Mobilizing the charitable gaming industry for nonprofits would dramatically expand the reach and responsibility of the gaming marketplace over all.
Online gaming saved the gambling industry during the Covid-19 Pandemic. It’s time we leverage online gaming to benefit nonprofits through the established regulatory pathway of charitable gaming that has been created for nonprofits, for good cause.
Nonprofits, just like for-profit businesses, need a reliable and supportive charitable gaming regulatory environment. Vulnerabilities are imposed unwittingly or purposefully where policy makers:
- Restrict access to game-related fundraising for tax-exempt nonprofits
- Limit nonprofit’s competitiveness to offer charitable giving incentives within the gaming space;
- Establish unwieldy regulatory burdens which limit the nonprofit’s charitable gaming operations unnecessarily;
- Burden nonprofits with dated regulatory standards;
- Open the door to regulated markets to the exclusion of charitable gaming.
- Increase government expenditures which crowd our charitable gaming1
- The empirical study published by the National Tax Journal reveals that a one percent increase in government expenditures leads to a 2.1-3.8 percent decrease in giving. Apinunmahakul, A., & Devlin, R. A. (2004). Charitable Giving and Charitable Gambling: An Empirical Investigation. National Tax Journal, 57(1), 67–88. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41790138