All the Excitement of Bingo

When most people think of bingo, they think of little old ladies with ink daubers in one hand, perhaps six or so cards in front of them, just waiting to be able to holler out BINGO while someone stands in front of the room calling out numbers. Those days are still here, but for some places they are becoming a thing of the past.

With the popularity of bingo slot machines, many charities are turning to those to bring in their revenue. They find that they are making more money off of the bingo slot machines than they do having someone call it live. However, some places say that bingo slot machines are simply slot machines and that the bingo part is just an add on. They say it is a way for places to bring in slot machines illegally, but supporters of the machines say that isn’t true.

In the case of California, they left it up to local governments as to whether or not they want bingo machines, and if they think they are indeed slot machines. State legislation could make electronic bingo legal everywhere, but local ordinances will have to change. Such as in Sacramento, where they just passed a law stating that some types are legal and some aren’t – they say that those where you play against someone else are, and those where you are playing against the machine aren’t.

Many other localities will likely adopt the same standard, listing the bingo machines where you play the machine simply a slot machine and thereby illegal. Some places are happy about the distinction, still others are not as they say that by not allowing people to play against the machines they will end up losing money to those places that allow their players to play the machine.



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