Texas Attorney General Opinion: GA-0804 Page: 1 of 4
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ATTORNEY GENERAL OF TEXAS
GREG ABBOTT
September 30, 2010
The Honorable Edmund Kuempel Opinion No. GA-0804
Chair, Committee on Licensing and
Administrative Procedures Re: Whether a particular activity constitutes an
Texas House of Representatives offense under chapter 47 of the Penal Code, which
Post Office Box 2910 proscribes certain forms of gambling (RQ-0852-GA)
Austin, Texas 78768-2910
Dear Representative Kuempel:
You ask whether a certain activity that you describe "is considered 'gambling' within the
scope of Texas law, including the Texas Constitution Article III, Section 47, Texas Penal Code
[sections] 47.01-47.10, and Texas Occupations Code [chapters] 2001-2002."' You tell us the
activity is a "modification of typical games played in office pools, such as squares games and bracket
challenges, to be entirely for a charitable purpose." Request Letter at 1. You describe the activity
as follows:
The host will set up an independent 501(c)(3) to collect donations to
charity. The host entity will either take no revenue from the total
donation pool or only revenue sufficient to cover reasonable
operational expenses associated with hosting the event in compliance
with Internal Revenue Service rules for non-profit and charitable
entities. The donations will be taken and distributed by means of a
squares game. A squares game is generally understood to be a large
grid where each square represents the predicted final score of a major
sporting event, such as the Super Bowl. In purchasing a square, the
purchaser will designate a charity, which must be a valid non-profit,
charitable organization pursuant to the designations of the Internal
Revenue Service. At the end of the event, whichever charity has the
winning square will win the total money collected for the purchase of
the squares. Should no one purchase the winning square, the funds
will still go to charity in a method to be determined, but likely an
equal division of funds between all potentially winning charities.'Request Letter at 1 (available at http://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov).
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Texas. Attorney-General's Office. Texas Attorney General Opinion: GA-0804, text, September 30, 2010; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth275700/m1/1/: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.