Gun Raffles

Gun raffles are a fantastic way to get your business name out to the public and to make some extra walking-around money in the process. I’ve been the FFL for local gun raffles for the last three years, and it has brought my FFL business a lot of notoriety. And if you are on the fence about conducting or hosting one, just do it!

Gun raffles are a perfect fundraiser for non-profits such as volunteer fire departments, ambulance corps, conservative school PTAs, and even local tourist railroads that host “Great American Train Robbery” events.

Here are a few basic rules with which I run my gun raffles that you can emulate:

1. Conduct raffles only in the state of your FFL. In three years, I only had to ship a winning gun to an FFL on the other side of the state. But be wary! If the distant raffle winner does not pass their background check, the gun becomes the property of the distant FFL, and unless that FFL contacts you to make arrangements with you to return the gun to you, there is no way of knowing if the gun went into the raffle winner’s hands.
2. Know and understand all federal and state gun laws related to gun raffles.
3. Ensure the hosting non-profit organization has obtained a “Small Games Of Chance” license from their state, county, or other locality, so everyone complies.
4. And if the issuing body of that license wants to give the non-profit a hard time about guns being on the drawing premises, ensure those issuers that only certificates will be handed out…no guns will be transferred at the drawing location.
5. Indicate on the printed raffle tickets that “winners must comply with all federal and state gun laws”, and “background checks will only be conducted on the person whose name appears on the winning tickets…NO exceptions.”
6. I am a “kitchen table” FFL, so I do not keep any inventory. Accordingly, I limit my prize offerings to one distributor. I do this because the non-profit group that runs the raffle reimburses me for the gun purchases, and I do not want to present them with invoices from multiple distributors. But if you want to use multiple distributors or pull guns from your inventory, that is up to you. If you want to create a custom invoice of guns sourced from multiple distributors, that is also up to you.
7. Limit the raffle prizes to guns only. In my first year, the non-profit group decided to mix the offerings to include trail cams, compound bows, ammo, and guns. It just didn’t work out.
8. Select guns that have desirability and popularity…guns that are commonly in stock with your distributor. The worst feeling is for a gun raffle winner to make arrangements with you for the background check to be conducted and the gun to be transferred, only to hear “that gun is not currently in stock.”
9. If you decide to offer cash in lieu of guns for those raffle winners who don’t want the gun prize, make the cash offer low enough so as not to eat away at the net proceeds. Remember, the whole point of holding a gun raffle is to raise funds by maximizing the net proceeds of the host entity, not to give away the farm.
10. Help the non-profit decide on the best form of raffle to hold. Some places do a “gun-a-day,” and others, like the one for whom I assist, raffle 20 guns once a year. The gun-a-day is great if someone can be dedicated to pulling a winning raffle ticket 365 days per year. The “gun-a-day” concept means you have to place an order with a distributor for a single gun every day of the year or pull a gun a day from your inventory.
11. Give the winner a certificate at the raffle drawing. Unless your retail gun place of business has a large conference room where you can conduct the raffle, most non-profits use meeting halls, churches, or firehouses to conduct their raffles. And, according to the ATF, these are not legitimate places by which you can conduct gun transfers. I hand out certificates with my business address, which is the address printed on my FFL, so all gun winners have to come to my place of business.
12. And remember, just because a raffle winner passes his/her background check, you are under no obligation to transfer the gun, particularly if your Spidey senses start tingling about the raffle winner.
13. If you or the non-profit decides to publish the list of winners, do NOT include full names. Choose either first initial, last name, or first name, last initial. People get pissed off if you announce using their full name they won a gun, particularly if they have a very liberal family and friends.
14. Make sure the printed tickets contain the word “Donation” instead of “Price” to avoid sales tax.
15. Some raffle hosts/FFLs bring the actual prizes to be won to display them in front of the crowd gathered for the drawing. You can bring and display the guns offered, but do NOT make any attempt to transfer the guns on the spot, as the place of the drawing is probably not your primary business address listed on your ATF license. Displaying the guns is detrimental for three reasons:
    • It means pre-purchasing the guns from one or more of your distributors, or
    • It means grabbing guns from inventory…
    • For someone who may want the cash prize in lieu of a gun.
16. And you’ll want to use FFLAssist to process gun raffles for the following reasons:
    • When completing the 4473, the raffle winner will be using the Section B Wizard. THEY will be entering their name, address, etc., directly into the CRM module of FFLAssist, not you! If you do a 20-gun raffle, after the last winner is processed, you now have 20 names and addresses that you can market in the future.
    • It connects and imports scanned ID data directly from the Plustek Duplex ID Card Scanner. This scanner can export ID data and import it directly into FFLAssist, where the data from the scanned ID is compared to what the customer actually enters on the 4473, and if a mismatch occurs, it flags the 4473 that a potential ATF Audit issue has been identified.
    • You’ll be able to and encouraged to upload an electronic photocopy of the raffle winner’s driver’s license will satisfy the ATF that ID information is on file for each 4473.
    • Obtain the list of raffle winners from the host entity, and if possible, the actual winning ticket stubs that match that list. Then upload everything into FFLAssist. The more documentation you have uploaded, the smoother your next ATF audit will go.
    • So, after each raffle winner has completed a 4473 and undergone a background check, each of my 4473s contains the following uploaded attachments:
      • The NICS or state approval
      • The packing list from the distributor displaying the serial number of the gun of this particular winner.
      • The winner’s driver’s license.
      • The list of raffle winners to show the winner was on that list.
      • The ticket stub matched a name on the winner’s list.
      • (Optionally) The distributor’s FFL, if the gun was sourced from someone other than one of the large distributors.
    • FFLAssist contains a “Mock ATF Audit” which flags any of the missing documentation above.
    • Customers sign the 4473 directly on the FFLAssist screen using their finger, a stylus, or a mouse.

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