Veterans groups urge lawmakers to allow electronic pull tabs in charity gaming

Indiana veterans organizations want to be able to offer an electronic gaming option at their posts.

A new alliance, PlayIN For Charity, urging lawmakers to revise the state’s charity gaming laws.

Currently, veterans groups like the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars can offer paper pull tabs. Pull tabs are a kind of lottery game in which you pull off strips of paper to reveal numbers, letters or symbols underneath. Match enough up and you win.

Richard Leirer, a former VFW state commander, said the groups now want to offer electronic pull tabs — whether on large machines or on tablets.

“So, you don’t have the paper to handle, you don’t have the cash to handle — everything’s done electronically,” Leirer said.

Leirer said veterans groups need a boost that electronic charity gaming can provide.

“Right now, most of our posts are older,” Leirer said. “I mean, the average age is probably in the high 60s. We need to get the younger members in.”

Veterans organizations use money earned from charity gaming to donate to causes around Indiana.

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Lawmakers are typically wary of changes viewed as expanding gaming in the state. American Legion Indiana legislative chairman Mark Gullion said allowing electronic pull tabs is not an expansion of gaming.

“It’s just a modernization,” Gullion said. “That’s all it is.”

Gullion said he was previously opposed to e-tabs. But he said the more he’s learned about them, the more supportive he’s become.

Gullion said the job now is to similarly educate lawmakers on the opportunity electronic pull tabs can provide.

Brandon is our Statehouse bureau chief. Contact him at bsmith@ipbs.org or follow him on Twitter at @brandonjsmith5.