The Elks club does this here. But we bought ours for $5.00 and the payouts are everyday and you could win $50.00 on weekdays or $300.00 on the weekends. This will be our first year doing this in 2006. A friend of my husbands sold these to us and he said him and his wife each won many times this past year.
I dont know anything on this about how much it generates in profit or how they do it. Not much help with this but maybe the smaller amounts given would make it easier to sell if it was cheaper to buy.
A local group has had good success with a calendar raffle. I'm not sure what's involved on the administrative side, but here is how it works.
Sell 1,000 numbered calendars for $20 each. Each day of the calendar they draw numbers. Specific days have certain cash payouts. They pay out $8,000 in cash - the group clears $12,000.
Probably $1,000 is printing costs, postage and check writing.
The calendar features vintage pictures of our city, the 1970-71 class pictures of a local elementary school (some of my friends are in there - hilarious!), etc.