A USA Today investigation details how hundreds of thousands of dollars intended for Colorado youth hockey programs through charity “50/50” raffles at Denver’s Ball Arena went missing under the oversight of former Colorado Amateur Hockey Association (CAHA) president Randy Kanai. As the state-certified raffle manager, Kanai was supposed to ensure that half of every jackpot benefited the association’s youth hockey programs, with the other half going to the raffle winner. Instead, from 2016 through 2022, roughly one in three dollars raised was misspent or unaccounted for.
“More than $300,000 was never deposited into the raffle bank account. Another $275,000 was paid to outside groups with little or no connection to hockey. And $25,000 more was spent on travel and entertainment, including $2,000 plane tickets and season tickets to Nuggets games,” according to USA Today.
During a 2025 civil trial, Kanai was questioned about a series of large cash deposits into his personal bank account that coincided with the missing raffle funds. He claimed the money came from “bags of cash” found in his deceased parents’ home decades earlier, not from the raffle. “I see exactly why it looks suspicious,” Kanai told USA Today. “But I’m telling you, I operated that raffle the best that I could. I did the best job that I could with the resources that I had.” A judge later ruled against him in a separate civil theft case, ordering $579,000 in restitution to the nonprofit.
CharityWatch CEO and executive director, Laurie Styron, criticized the failures of oversight that allowed such mismanagement. “Nonprofit officers have a fiduciary duty to be good stewards of their organizations’ resources,” Styron said. “If Kanai didn’t have the resources to manage the raffle properly, he shouldn’t have run it. This is just another example of someone running a nonprofit as if it’s their personal proprietorship. If you want to risk your own money, that’s your own business. But this is not his personal money. This is the charity’s money.”
The investigation also exposes regulatory breakdowns: neither the Colorado Secretary of State’s office, which licensed the raffles, nor USA Hockey, the sport’s national governing body, noticed the missing funds or repeated reporting discrepancies. The state has since opened a formal investigation into CAHA’s “past operating practices,” while USA Hockey has hired auditors to review the nonprofit’s finances. Whistleblower and hockey parent Brooke Wilfley helped bring the problem to light by commissioning an independent accounting review that revealed six-figure irregularities.
Ultimately, the missing raffle funds deprived Colorado’s youth hockey players of money meant to offset the steep costs of equipment, travel, and ice time. As Styron and others note, the scandal underscores how weak oversight can erode public trust in charitable gaming and nonprofit governance, leaving the very families these programs were meant to help bearing the financial burden instead.
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