The legislature hereby authorizes bona fide charitable or nonprofit organizations to conduct, without the necessity of obtaining a permit or license to do so from the commission, golfing sweepstakes permitting wagers of money, and the same shall not constitute such gambling or lottery as otherwise prohibited in this chapter, or be subject to civil or criminal penalties thereunder, but this only when the outcome of such golfing sweepstakes is dependent upon the score, or scores, or the playing ability, or abilities, of a golfing contest between individual players or teams of such players, conducted in the following manner:
(1) Wagers are placed by buying tickets on any players in a golfing contest to "win," "place," or "show" and those holding tickets on the three winners may receive a payoff similar to the system of betting identified as parimutuel, such moneys placed as wagers to be used primarily as winners' proceeds, except moneys used to defray the expenses of such golfing sweepstakes or otherwise used to carry out the purposes of such organization; or
(2) Participants in any golfing contest(s) pay a like sum of money into a common fund on the basis of attaining a stated number of points ascertainable from the score of such participants, and those participants attaining such stated number of points share equally in the moneys in the common fund, without any percentage of such moneys going to the sponsoring organization; or
(3) An auction is held in which persons may bid on the players or teams of players in the golfing contest, and the person placing the highest bid on the player or team that wins the golfing contest receives the proceeds of the auction, except moneys used to defray the expenses of the golfing sweepstakes or otherwise used to carry out the purposes of the organizations; and
(4) Participation is limited to members of the sponsoring organization and their bona fide guests.
[ 1997 c 38 § 1; 1987 c 4 § 32. Formerly RCW 9.46.030(7).]