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Why do charities volunteer in casinos, of all places, in Alberta? They do it to survive. This is what’s called the charitable gaming model. With potentially tens of thousands of dollars at stake that charities need to better help their communities, these events are too important to leave it to chance. There’s a lot that could go wrong.
In Raising the Stakes, a podcast about helping charities navigate the casino system in Alberta, long-time expert casino advisor Jeffrey Dawson cuts through the noise and lays out the critical path to holding a successful event. Here’s how he helps: it’s about simplifying, streamlining, and taking all of the guesswork out of it, because planning a casino fundraiser can sometimes feel like an impossible task.
Over the course of the series, we’ll hear from members of charitable groups who highlight their need for fundraising, the tumultuous state of not-for-profits in Alberta, and speak about going through the process from beginning to end. All are welcome at this table: from newer chairpersons who need hands-on guidance, to those who know exactly who and what they need to pull off the perfect event.
Learn more about Jeffrey Dawson and Alberta Casino Advisors Incorporated at https://albertacasinoadvisors.com/
HOSTED BY JEFFREY DAWSON
WRITTEN AND PRODUCED BY JORDAN WONG
NARRATED BY RITHU JAGANNATH
EP Production Team (00:00.106)
If you honestly don't understand the nuances of it, working with government is challenging and they're quite particular about how they want to do things and also not terribly forgiving. When you're dealing with AGLC, like any government organization, they have a structured way of doing things. If you do not respond to their, within their structure and meet their deadlines, you could lose your event.
EP Production Team (00:26.19)
There are more than a few things you need to keep in mind when you're dealing with the Alberta Gaming Liquor and Cannabis Commission, or AGLC. That's who charities have to work with from day one, from when they decide to apply for a license for a casino, all the way up to their events. There's a reason why having a casino advisor is a requirement, to make sure the charities are doing everything they're supposed to, when they're supposed to. Because if they don't, that's money they're leaving on the table.
This is Raising the Stakes. It's a podcast about the role casino advisors play in helping charities pull off the perfect casino fundraiser event. Because a charity's ability to help their communities might depend on just making it to the tables. There's a long road to get there, and when it comes to casino events, there's no room for error.
EP Production Team (01:19.758)
Well, the rules are always changing from an AGLC's perspective, so yes, yes, there's lots that could happen to make it more difficult. Jeffrey Dawson has been a casino advisor since 2011. He's the owner and operator of Alberta Casino Advisors, Incorporated, and he's here to demystify the AGLC. If you listen to what Jeff says, if you get your paperwork handed in on time and you plan properly for the event, it'll go off without a hitch.
It's a relatively straightforward process, but there are places where charities might still make mistakes, and there are consequences to that. Last time on Raising the Stakes, we spoke to members of three different charitable groups in Alberta about the work they do for their communities and how much of that is made possible by the casinos. cannot begin to tell you how giving our communities are and how giving the people in our communities are. That's Mark Forney.
Treasurer of Wildrose Humane Society, an animal shelter. We do rely upon that to keep the shelter open, but the top up for the veterinary costs, that's almost exclusively done through the casinos. Their vet costs are the largest they have, so that's a big compliment to the casino system. But it's also something of an unsteady tightrope the charities need to walk. Well, and that's the problem. And I mean, as we move forward, and especially under this particular government, things are going to change again. That's Sean Fraser.
He's the executive director of the Evergreen Theatre Society. He's been doing casinos for a long time. It's a steady source of their funding and what they need to do to survive. But it's not without its share of challenges. So one of the big first things that hurt casinos many years ago was when smoking was banned inside. That really hurt casino revenues. Back in the day, and this is about, I don't know, 10, 15 years ago, we were doing a casino every
10 to 12 months and a casino would yield an organization around $100,000, $105,000. We now are doing a casino about every 18 months and we get around $60,000. When that's a large part of your revenue, know, $40,000, $50,000 reduction, it's hard. So it's all the more important that everything goes smoothly for them.
EP Production Team (03:41.889)
I've had many people who volunteered several times and then they become a chairperson and they didn't realize all the paperwork and all the poops and stuff that they have to go through with AGLC. We'll let Jeff take you through the steps. For one, to be eligible, the organization must be a charitable organization. They don't have to be licensed charity. They just have to be not in the business to make money. Then they have to be in
existence for a minimum of two years before they can apply to AGLC to run a casino event. And so the AGLC will assign you to a region, depending on which region you're assigned to, the waiting period after you get approved is can be as long as three years and as short as about 18 months to get your first casino. So you have to be in existence for two years, six months of processing, a minimum 18 months of
of waiting, so it's about four years after you organize before you can get your first casino event. Four whole years. While the time it takes might seem like a huge deterrent to charities, it's still their best bet. They just have to ride it out. But it's toughest for those who are just getting started. It does get easier the more casino events you do. And a good casino advisor is there to make everything as painless as possible, taking all of the worry out of it.
even the casino events that haven't happened yet by getting a jump on them right away. cannot apply for your next event until the current event is filled. We actually have an automated system where we upload in our system and literally one second after the event is completed, it's filed for the next one. At this point, we're on a little bit of a cycle. That's Terri Lee Ropchin, executive director of the Central Alberta Crime Prevention Centre. So that first time,
You don't know, you're a little bit like nervous, will we get it? All the questions, right? But then afterwards, after you've been through one, you send in the next application. And Jeff is always good at reminding everybody and making sure those get in. Once you're in, making sure your reports are up to date, because we do have to report to the Alberta government every single year. And they're very meticulous that here's how much money was exactly in the account last time we talked to you.
EP Production Team (06:05.922)
tell us exactly where every dime came from and where every other dime went. As long as you keep up on that and work with the nice people at the AGLC, it's actually a pretty, pretty painless process. When they send out the information to the charity that they have those two dates in that particular casino, they send a whole bunch of forms and they tell them what they have to do as far as process, but they don't give really much guidance. They rely on the advisors to do that. So it's important.
to make sure you get assistance from day one from an organization that understands how the paperwork needs to be done so you can get to your event and get the proceeds. Jeff also helps charities with the ins and outs of the GAIN program that the AGLC offers. It's short for Gaming Information for Charitable Groups.
They're resource that provides charities crucial training and information about things like eligibility requirements, allowable use of proceeds and submitting financial reports. People just think maybe it's a grant, but it isn't. It comes with some stipulations. I'd say that AGLC has done a very good job in recent years of really
streamlining some of the things that are common to all groups. If you have a team of people that have been doing them for a while, then it's not as big an issue. Where I would imagine it would be a little more complex is when you're having mostly volunteer run or parent run organizations because they've never really weighed it in to those kind of things before. And so it's kind of all new for them. So it can be a little more complicated. And I imagine that's where Jeff's team is needing to be a little more involved or a little more, you know,
guiding them through that process. Because if you honestly don't understand the nuances of it, working with government is challenging, right? And so, and they're quite particular about how they want to do things and also not terribly forgiving. The very first one that I did, I was fundraiser for an organization and they're like, yeah, and so you have to do that. And I was like, I'm not sure how.
EP Production Team (08:07.162)
And at that point, we were working with a different casino host and they were not helpful in that process. It was like, fill it out, send it in, that's on you. I think for those new ones that there's a lot of fear because you've got government forms coming at you, you've got deadlines, you've got to fill things in. Working with the government can be quite particular, especially with AGLC. They can also be somewhat intimidating if you're not used to it and quite specific. And so the thing is, is to make sure you get all of your
I's dotted and T's crossed and all those things and don't miss deadlines. Deadlines are really important. Hey, louder for the people at the back. The entire process, whether you have a casino event at all, depends on deadlines. So some of the things that can go wrong is that it's not meeting deadlines. Over the years, we've helped groups and noticed that sometimes that they're filling the paperwork out incorrectly. They misunderstand what the government is looking for in their forms. So AGLC gets the paperwork and they say, okay.
This is wrong. So they send it back. They email you and say, okay, your form is wrong. They'll give you like two days to fix it. If you don't look at your emails and fix it, you could lose your event. We just make sure that it's done very quickly, follows all the rules. So there's no kickback. So AGLC doesn't say, you filed this too early. So we have to redo it. And that just happened to groups. Then they have to file it again. And they're three months behind. Jeff mentioned that he has an automated system.
to get charities started on the next casino as soon as possible. It's this kind of efficiency that makes it run like clockwork. And then there are other consequences than just not being able to have an event. The AGLC can issue fines or if worse comes to worst, could make future casino events a less than sure thing. There are organizations that I'm aware of that after they don't fill out the paperwork properly or maybe they intentionally make an error on the paperwork.
They call that a way by. If you get caught, ATLC could fine you. They could also remove you from getting future casino events. Yeah, you get once you get booted out of the circuit, it's a long time before you get back in. It takes about six to eight years. So yeah, it can be quite serious. Jeff, keeping it simple is his number one priority. He's constantly making improvements to automate and keep the guesswork out of it. For the charities that do choose to work with Jeff, having a streamlined process that just works
EP Production Team (10:31.904)
is important to them. This comes in the form of good organization. But also, Jeff works with a team, as he mentioned last episode. That comes in handy when everything and everyone you need is in the same place. So there's kind of two ways of going. You can hire individual advisors for different shifts and they're all sort of
independent people. Or you can work with someone like Jeff, who is actually an organization that comes to the table. So he's a small business with the resources of people that can fill all the different advisor roles. another thing to note about Streamlining, Alberta Casino Advisors is incorporated. For Jeff and the charities he works with, there's a lot of upside in doing this. I'm one of very few in the province that have what's called a gaming worker supplier license.
My organization has gone through all the processes and the costs and the paperwork to get that license. And that way, the charity only has to write one check. They write it to the corporation. And then I distribute the checks between all the advisors. So, after all this, the paperwork might be done, but the work isn't over. We have to talk about maybe the most important part of this. Planning the event. Next time on Raising the Stakes. Volunteers can make or break a casino event, but of course,
there are rules to follow. If the charity doesn't have sufficient volunteers, is not allowed to open. And because that charity has accepted the responsibility to be there for those two days, if they don't show up, technically the casino could seek financial recourse for not being able to open. there are lots at stake there. That's how important volunteers are in this whole structure.
Find out how Jeff can help with the volunteer situation. There are 200 of them. They're on standby and he calls them Casino Angels.
EP Production Team (12:29.228)
Another Everything Podcast production. Visit everythingpodcast.com, a division of Patterson Media. Subscribe wherever you get your podcast.