Okay, the government isn’t going to get involved in local raffles for band trips and volunteer fire departments. But the reason for that is because these are small time raffles involving a few thousand dollars. Try to use one of these to launder a few hundred thousand dollars and the government will start asking some questions. Heck, try to run a legit raffle of that size and you can expect somebody from the government to show up.
Here in Canada, and I presume in a lot of states, even a small lottery in the “few thousand” range reuires a license and paperwork. Only a legitimate registered charity can run one. You have to be an estblished charity. Some phantom organization formed last week will raise alarm bells. then you have to have some guarantee for the prizes, so that even if the raffle’s a dud and you only sell 10 tickets, you still have to give the winner the big-screen TV they won. And, you have to fill in a form at theend which lists all the big winners. It’s not a matter of “we’ll give Vinny, Bugsy and Sonny each $20,000 and each one can claim hey were the big winner if interrogated.” It has to be filed at the time.
Again, the problem is volume. Even at a big sports event, how big is the payout? And in the USA, where such winnings are taxable, I bet documentation is rquired. (I have heard stories about the IRS agents in Vegas casinos converging on the lucky slots winner before the last coin has dropped. Not sure how it works with the new paper system…)
To launder even half a million a year, consistently, would require a lot of fake lotteries. You are not going to slip a fake million-dollar lottery past any competent state auditor, even if the state accidentally gave you a license. Too many details - who sold a hundred thousand tickets, and where? Where’s the cash slowly trickling into the ticket sales accounts that matches the books of tickets distriuted? And so on…
Of course, once they find one fake, they’ll look for others. I assume 3 fake lotteries in a row will net you a RICO charge, too.