Two gacoam.com Deadlines Every Georgia COAM Operator Must Hit in the Next 61 Days

When Georgia COAM operators talk about the July 2026 deadline, the conversation almost always centers on the same thing: cash payouts ending, gift cards starting, HB 353 compliance. That conversation is necessary and urgent. But it has a way of crowding out two other gacoam.com obligations that can quietly create problems for operators who aren't paying attention.

The first is an administrative change that took effect in February 2026. The Georgia Lottery Corporation stopped accepting COAM EFT Authorization Forms by fax or email. If your operation is still routing forms that way — or hasn't submitted an updated form since the change — your payment processing could be delayed or stalled without any obvious error message.

The second is a reporting deadline that almost every July 1 compliance guide skips over entirely: July 20, 2026. That's when Q2 Gross Retail Receipts (covering April through June) are due to the GLC through gacoam.com. It falls exactly 20 days after the HB 353 cash-payout prohibition takes effect — which means operators are simultaneously finalizing their gift card system rollout and closing out a quarterly report on the same compressed timeline.

Neither issue is complicated to address. But both require action now, before the pre-July rush consumes all available attention.

The EFT Change: What Happened in February 2026

The EFT Authorization Form is how the Georgia Lottery Corporation sets up direct deposit for the location and master licensee shares of COAM net receipts. Under the revenue structure established by HB 353, the GLC retains 13% of net receipts; the remaining 87% is split evenly between location licensees (43.5%) and master licensees (43.5%). Getting that revenue to the right accounts requires a valid, current EFT Authorization Form on file.

For years, operators could submit or update their EFT form by fax or email. As of February 2026, that changed. For security and processing reasons, the GLC now requires all EFT Authorization Forms to be uploaded directly through the COAM website at www.gacoam.com. Forms submitted by fax or by email after this date are not being processed.

The practical risk for operators who haven't made this update: if your banking information changes, if you're onboarding a new location, or if you need to file any EFT-related paperwork, submitting it the old way means it won't get processed. The GLC won't necessarily send a rejection notice — the form simply won't move. In the run-up to July 1, when many operators are adding new payment infrastructure and may need to update their banking details, this is a real operational hazard.

How to Submit Your EFT Authorization Form Through the Portal

The upload process through gacoam.com is straightforward once you know where to find it. Here are the exact steps the GLC has documented:

1. Log in to www.gacoam.com using your registered email address and password.
2. In the navigation bar, select ACCOUNT.
3. From the submenu, choose UPLOAD DOCUMENTS.
4. In the SELECT A BUSINESS dropdown, choose your business.
5. In the DOCUMENT TYPE dropdown, select EFT Authorization Form.
6. Click CHOOSE A FILE, locate the completed EFT Authorization Form on your computer, and click OPEN.
7. Click UPLOAD to submit.

One timing note: EFT Authorization Forms uploaded to gacoam.com after 12:00 PM EST on Fridays are processed on the next business day. Plan accordingly if you're submitting close to a payment date.

If you run into questions or issues, the GLC's Retailer Services COAM Helpline is available at 1-800-746-8546 (select Option 6, then Option 2).

Even if you haven't changed your banking details recently, it's worth logging in to verify that your EFT information is current and that no outstanding form submissions are stuck in the old fax or email queue. The cost of a few minutes of verification is significantly lower than the cost of a missed or delayed payment during the July transition period.

The July 20, 2026 Gross Retail Receipts Deadline

Georgia COAM operators are required to submit Gross Retail Receipts quarterly through gacoam.com. The reporting calendar runs on a fixed schedule: reports covering the previous calendar quarter are due on the 20th of January, April, July, and October each year. This requirement has been in place since July 20, 2024, when the first quarterly reports under the new system became due.

The July 20, 2026 deadline covers Q2 — April 1 through June 30, 2026. This is the last quarterly report before HB 353's gift card payout requirement takes full effect. By definition, it captures your final weeks operating under the transition period that began May 6, 2024, when HB 353 first permitted non-reloadable gift card payouts alongside whatever existing practices were in place.

Why does this matter right now, in May 2026? Because many operators are so focused on getting a gift card system installed before July 1 that the July 20 report barely registers on the radar. It shouldn't be an afterthought.

What Goes Into the Q2 Report

The Gross Retail Receipts report captures total gross receipts from COAM play at your location for the quarter. This is pre-deduction gross revenue from the machines — what went in, not what came out as prizes. It feeds directly into the GLC's revenue calculations and the 13% GLC share allocation.

For Q2 2026, many operators will have been running some version of a hybrid operation: a portion of payouts as gift cards (under the transition-period option that's been available since May 2024) and potentially some cash payouts that are legal through June 30. Your payout records for those final weeks of Q2 need to be clean enough to support accurate gross receipt reporting.

If your current payout process relies on handwritten logs or informal cash records, the Q2 report is a forcing function: by July 20, you'll need to have consolidated those records. An automated gift card payout system that logs every transaction — machine played, amount won, card loaded, timestamp — makes this straightforward. A manual process creates reconciliation work under time pressure.

The October 20 Report: Your First Full Quarter of Gift Card Data

The Q3 report, due October 20, 2026, will be the first to capture a full quarter of operations under the new HB 353 rules — July through September, with no cash payouts permitted. This is when the quality of your gift card system's record-keeping becomes directly relevant to your reporting obligations.

Every gift card payout you make from July 1 forward is a data point that should be automatically recorded by your payout system: the machine identifier, the won amount, the card number (or transaction ID), and the timestamp. Come October 20, that data either flows cleanly into your Gross Retail Receipts submission, or you reconstruct it from logs and receipts under deadline pressure.

Getting your payout system installed now — not the week before July 1 — means you have six to eight weeks to work out any transaction logging issues before the Q3 reporting period even begins.

Why These Two Issues Are Connected

The EFT form change and the July 20 reporting deadline might seem like separate administrative tasks, but they represent the same underlying pattern: the GLC is modernizing its operational infrastructure, and gacoam.com is the hub for nearly every compliance interaction.

License applications and renewals go through gacoam.com. Gross Retail Receipts go through gacoam.com. EFT forms now go through gacoam.com. If your login credentials aren't current, if your contact information is stale, or if you've been relying on workarounds (like faxing forms) that no longer work, these issues compound. A location that hasn't logged into its gacoam.com account recently might discover multiple outstanding items at once.

The practical action item: log in to your gacoam.com account this week. Verify your EFT Authorization Form is on file and current. Check whether any document submissions are pending. Confirm your Q1 Gross Retail Receipts were successfully submitted (they were due April 20, 2026). And make sure your account information reflects your current business details — if you've had any material changes in location, ownership, or banking since your last renewal, those need to be reported.

The Georgia COAM double deadline (license renewal by June 30 and gift card compliance by July 1) already creates an unusually compressed summer. Adding EFT form issues or a scrambled Q2 report to that timeline is avoidable stress.

The License Renewal Connection

There's one more gacoam.com item worth flagging in the same breath. As covered in our double deadline post, the 2027 license renewal window opened on May 4, 2026. Location and master licensees who renew by June 30 pay the standard renewal fee; those who miss the June 30 window face a $1,000 non-refundable late fee per Class B license.

Renewals are processed through — you guessed it — gacoam.com. If you're already logging in to verify your EFT form and prepare your Q2 reporting data, check your renewal status at the same time. Three separate administrative tasks, one login session.

The GLC has been explicit that compliance with its procedural requirements — EFT forms, reporting, license renewals — is part of the overall compliance picture that its Compliance Inspectors evaluate. An operator who is fully compliant on gift card payouts but has a stale EFT form or a missed reporting deadline is still an operator with compliance issues.

What to Do This Week

With 42 days until July 1, here is the specific gacoam.com action list for every Georgia COAM location and master licensee:

1. Log in to gacoam.com and verify your account is active and your contact information is current.
2. Check your EFT Authorization Form status. If you've submitted anything by fax or email since February 2026, it has not been processed. Resubmit via the portal: ACCOUNT → UPLOAD DOCUMENTS → EFT Authorization Form.
3. Confirm Q1 reporting was completed (April 20 deadline) and note the July 20 deadline for Q2.
4. Check your license renewal status — the June 30 deadline to avoid the $1,000 late fee per Class B license is 41 days away.
5. If you don't yet have a gift card payout system, contact a provider today. Installation lead times range from two to four weeks, and every week of delay compresses the time available to train staff and test the system before July 1.

None of these steps take more than an hour. Together, they close the most common administrative gaps that create compliance problems in the final weeks before a major regulatory transition.

For a broader look at what GLC Compliance Inspectors evaluate when they walk through a COAM location, see our GLC Compliance Inspection Guide. For the full July 1 compliance picture, the Georgia COAM Compliance Checklist covers the complete operational transition.

The Bottom Line

July 1, 2026 is the headline deadline. But the GLC operates on a compliance calendar that doesn't pause when HB 353 takes effect. EFT forms need to flow through the portal correctly for payments to process correctly. Quarterly reports need to be filed on time — and with 20 days between July 1 and July 20, the Q2 report arrives before most operators have fully settled into their new payout systems.

The operators who navigate this transition smoothly are the ones who treat it as a set of parallel tracks — gift card system, GLC portal management, reporting, and license renewal — rather than a single event. All four need attention in the same compressed window. Right now, while there are still 42 days on the clock, is the time to address each one.