By Daniel Werly, Esq.
The Ironman World Championship, held every October in the barren lava fields of Kona, Hawaii, is the world’s most prestigious (and arguably the most difficult) long course triathlon race. First held in 1977, the race combined the three toughest endurance races in Hawai’i—the 2.4-mile Waikiki Roughwater Swim, 112 miles of the Around-O’ahu Bike Race and the 26.2-mile Honolulu Marathon—into one event.
Not just any triathlete can participate in Kona. The best Ironman triathletes from around the world compete in other Ironman races, each of which awards a few Ironman slots, in order to qualify for the race. For those triathletes who have no ambitions of winning a qualifying race, there are a couple other ways to get in: bid on auctioned race slots on eBay (the bidding opens at $10,000) or pay $50 to enter a lottery for 100 slots (entrants can pay another $50 to join the “passport club” which doubles their chances of winning).
Unfortunately for Ironman, its Kona lottery allegedly violated Florida and federal law prohibiting certain types of lotteries. In a complaint filed on May 12, 2015, federal prosecutors alleged that the lottery violated Florida’s constitution and lottery statute and, because of this, violated federal law (18 U.S.C. 1955). Legally speaking, a lottery is defined as a scheme that involves consideration, chance, and a prize. Here, Ironman ran afoul of the law because it collected a fee for profit. While state statutes vary, other races are usually not illegal if they do not collect a fee or if the fee is given to charity.
Although Ironman does not admit to any wrongdoing (in a press release Ironman still contends that there was nothing “untoward or inappropriate in our operation of the Ironman Kona Lottery”), it agreed to forfeit the profits from the last three years’ lotteries to settle the case. Notably, in the last three years Ironman’s profits from the lottery have sharply increased from $654,410 in 2013, to $911,600 in 2014, and to $1,057,150 in 2015. In exchange for forfeiting the lottery profits during these years, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida has agreed not to bring criminal charges.
Ironman contends that it will continue running the (presumably modified) Kona lottery. It is unclear, however, what impact this settlement will have on other races in the U.S. that run lotteries (there are many including the New York Marathon and the Peachtree Road Race). Asked whether the DOJ is investigating or will consider investigating other events, spokesman William Daniels wrote that “we do not comment regarding ongoing investigations, or whether, in fact, there are ongoing investigations.”
Werly can be reached at werlydw@gmail.com
