Assembly Panel Clears Lopez, Murphy, & Johnson Amendment to Allow Certain Organizations to Use Proceeds from Games of Chance   

(TRENTON) – The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted New Jersey’s charitable non-profit community. To benefit non-profit organizations who conduct games of chance, Assembly Democrats Yvonne Lopez, Carol Murphy, and Gordon Johnson sponsor a resolution passed by the Assembly Tourism, Gaming and the Arts Committee on Wednesday that would allow organizations to support themselves using their net proceeds from the gaming events.

The current New Jersey Constitution permits certain non-profits such as veterans and senior citizen groups who conduct games like bingo or raffles to use some of the profits to operate.  The measure (ACR-159) would change the law to allow all other groups that are permitted to conduct games of chance to use the net proceeds to support their organizations.  This resolution would take effect after a majority approval from New Jersey voters at the general election in November.

Upon committee approval, Assembly members Lopez, Murphy, and Johnson issued the following statements:

“Many non-profits have seen major financial set-backs over the last year,” said Lopez (D-Middlesex).  “We have seen that allowing veterans and senior citizen groups to use the proceeds from bingo and raffles has helped them tremendously and it is time we expanded those benefits to more groups.” 

   “Educational groups, religious institutions, volunteer groups and many more need additional profits to enable them to continue functioning,” said Murphy (D-Burlington).  “Allowing other groups to use a portion of their money earned from fundraising games such as Bingo Night will help them too, especially after so many have been financially affected by the pandemic.” 

“Non-profits employ over 30,000 employees in the state of New Jersey. These hard-working employees perform incredibly important jobs and the pandemic has dramatically impacted these programs’ ability to function,” said Johnson (D-Bergen).  “The net proceeds from game nights will provide much needed support for these organizations.”