North Carolina Bingo Laws: Licenses, Prize Limits, and Beach Bingo

North Carolina bingo laws allow the game only when a qualifying nonprofit runs it under an annual Charitable Bingo License issued by Alcohol Law Enforcement (ALE), a division of the Department of Public Safety. The rules sit in Chapter 14, Article 37 of the General Statutes, and they govern who can host a game, how often, for how long, and for how much prize money. Running bingo without that license is a Class I felony, so the details matter.¹

Who Can Run Bingo

Only bona fide nonprofits qualify. The organization must have existed continuously in the county where the game will take place for at least one year, and it must be tax-exempt under Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3), 501(c)(4), 501(c)(8), 501(c)(10), 501(c)(19), or 501(d).¹ Eligible groups include charitable, civic, religious, fraternal, patriotic, and veterans’ organizations, along with volunteer fire departments, volunteer rescue squads, and property owners’ associations.²

Local chapters get their own license. A national nonprofit’s headquarters cannot cover a local branch under one umbrella; the license belongs to the specific local unit running the game.

Getting a License

Applications go to the Bingo Licensing Section within Alcohol Law Enforcement. The annual license fee is $200 and is nonrefundable. No organization may operate a bingo game at any location without that license in hand.²

ALE, not the Department of Revenue, is the licensing authority. Older summaries occasionally point to Revenue, but licensing, compliance, and enforcement all sit with ALE.

Session and Prize Limits

A licensed organization can hold up to two bingo sessions per week, and each session is capped at five hours. No two sessions can fall within 48 hours of each other, and no building can host more than two sessions in a calendar week regardless of how many groups use the space.²

Prize caps work at two levels. The maximum prize for any single bingo game is $500 in cash or merchandise. Total prizes across a full session cannot exceed $1,500 when the organization runs two sessions in the week. If it runs only one session that week, the aggregate cap rises to $2,500.³ That single-session bonus is easy to miss and can shape scheduling: a group running bingo once a week can legally offer noticeably larger prize pools than one running twice.

The statute’s definition of “bingo” covers games played with cards of numbered squares from 1 to 75 where prizes go to players matching a predetermined pattern. Pre-packaged scratch-off “instant bingo” cards fall outside that definition and are not covered by the same licensing rules.¹

How the Money Must Be Handled

Every dollar connected to bingo must sit in a separate, dedicated bank account, and every payment out of it must be made by consecutively numbered check. Allowable disbursements are limited to prizes, advertising, utilities, bingo supplies and equipment, taxes, license fees, and authorized compensation.¹

Whatever is left after those expenses must go to religious, charitable, civic, scientific, public safety, literary, or educational purposes. Proceeds can also fund buildings, land, or equipment the organization owns and uses for civic purposes or makes available to the public. One firm line: no proceeds may be spent on social functions for the organization’s own members.³

Records and Audits

Licensed organizations must prepare an annual audit covering January 1 through December 31, or another period the Department of Public Safety designates. The audit is filed with both DPS and local law enforcement on a DPS-approved form, and it must document the number of games conducted, their dates and locations, prizes awarded, gross receipts, prize costs and totals per session, net return, and every disbursement from the bingo account including the date, payee name and address, and purpose.¹

All books, papers, records, and related documents must be available at reasonable times for inspection by law enforcement, the district attorney, or the Department of Public Safety.¹

Penalties

Violations split into two tiers, and the gap is large. A Class I felony applies to anyone who operates a bingo game without a license, operates while a license is suspended or revoked, willfully misuses or misapplies money received from a bingo game, or contracts with or provides consulting services to a licensee.¹

That consulting provision catches people off guard. Outside consultants and contractors who provide services to a bingo licensee can face felony charges. The statute is written to keep operations inside the nonprofit and to block commercial gambling from routing through charitable cover.

The lower tier is a Class 2 misdemeanor, which applies to a licensed organization that conducts a bingo game in violation of the statute. This is the bucket for exceeding session times, going over prize caps, or failing to keep proper records.⁴

Beach Bingo

North Carolina treats “beach bingo” as its own category with different numbers. Beach bingo prizes cannot exceed $10 in cash or merchandise, and merchandise prizes cannot be redeemed for cash. Since October 1, 2016, an annual license has been required to operate a beach bingo business anywhere in the state.² The fee structure is separate: $300 for the initial application and $300 for annual renewal, under § 14-309.14.

Volunteer Staffing and Federal Tax

The statute limits who can be paid to run a game, so most bingo operations lean on volunteers. That has a federal tax consequence worth understanding. Under Internal Revenue Code section 513(a)(1), if substantially all the work in carrying on a trade or business is done without compensation, the income is not unrelated business income. For bingo specifically, if volunteers do substantially all the work, the revenue will not trigger unrelated business income tax for the nonprofit, regardless of the type of game being played.⁵ Organizations that begin paying workers should talk to a tax professional before that shift, because crossing the volunteer threshold can turn bingo revenue into taxable income.

One Exception at Fairs

Bingo games and raffles conducted at fairs or exhibitions under Article 45 of Chapter 106 of the General Statutes are not subject to the session-limit restrictions described above.³ If you’re planning bingo outside that narrow fair setting, the standard rules apply in full.

1
North Carolina Department of Adult Correction. North Carolina Code Chapter 14 Article 37 – Lotteries, Gaming, Bingo and Raffles
2
North Carolina Department of Public Safety. Bingo
3
North Carolina General Assembly. Session Law 1983-896
4
Justia Law. North Carolina Code Chapter 14 Article 37 – Lotteries, Gaming, Bingo and Raffles
5
Internal Revenue Service. Exclusion of Bingo From Unrelated Business Activity