Bingo Berra

Hawaiian Politicians Legalize Bingo

In the US there are only two states that have completely barred gambling: Hawaii and Utah. Now that members of the Hawaiian House Committee have voted to allow bingo to be legalized, it may only be a few weeks before Hawaiian natives and tourists can take part in this beloved pastime. If the new measure goes through as planned 80% of the money gained from bingo will go directly to a trust fund that will benefit Hawaii.

If you think that every hotel and resort will start to allow gambling in Hawaii, think again. Although the new law will make it possible for you to play bingo in Hawaii, there is only going to be one place where it is legalized. The yet to be designated location will likely be on one of Hawaii’s main islands. There has been no word on whether or not other gambling games will be allowed in Hawaii in the coming months.

It is likely that the new law will be successfully passed by both the Hawaiian House Committee and the Senate, which will make Utah the only remaining state that has outlawed Bingo. Because Hawaii is attempting to gain more funds from tourism, bingo will probably help the state to raise more capital. It is not yet known whether Hawaiian politicians will open additional bingo hall locations in the future. While the bill still has to go through two more rounds of voting, the local residents are already gearing up to play bingo at their newly legalized bingo hall.

Alabama Casino Operators Heading To Court To Prove Slot Machines Are Legal In The State

Several states and territories in the US have rather murky gambling laws. Most places make it illegal to gamble outside of a licensed casino, but most states do allow people to purchase lottery tickets and play on slot machines. Alabama Governor Bob Riley raiding and closing down casinos in the state that offer video poker. Riley’s reasoning is that video poker machines have actually been categorized in error. Many believe that Gov. Riley is closing down a huge number of Alabama casinos through a small loophole. The Alabama Supreme Court ruled that all video poker machines must allow multiple players to participate at the same time and that each number needs to be audibly announced. In addition, all bingo cards must have 25 squares, players have to actually mark their cards and the winning number must also be announced. Needless to say, most of the video poker machines in Alabama casinos did not meet these criteria.

As a result of the mass closing of these casinos, the economy in Alabama is suffering immensely. Thousands of jobs have been lost and revenues in some counties are at an all time low. Newly appointed Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange has agreed to meet with the owners of these closed casinos to discuss what can be done about the situation, but it will be in the courtroom. If the casino owners agree to have some of their video poker machines confiscated then the state of Alabama has promised that they will not be subject to raids.

Milwaukee Bingo Scammers Brought To Justice

In the US, bingo has long been a staple at casinos on reservations. Indian reservations have given bingo lovers access to their favorite games in states that have banned gambling in almost every other form. Besides buying lottery tickets, Wisconsin residents only have about a dozen casinos that they can gamble in. When officials at Potawatomi Casino noticed that the same people were winning jackpots they realized that something wasn’t right. One Potawatomi Casinoo employee named Deandre Russell has been named as the mastermind behind the scheme. Using the casino’s popular bingo game, Pick 8, Russell was able to get access the machine and pick the numbers himself. After giving his cohorts the winning numbers, they would place their bets and all parties involved in this illegal game would split the winnings. All in all, Potawatomi Casino lost approximately $160,000 to Russell and his co-conspirators.

After alerting the police, nine people were arrested for fixing bingo games at the Potawatomi Casino. Although many casino industry experts have criticized the way in which the bingo games were handled, Potawatomi Casino is among a group of small, individually owned casinos in the US. Reservation casinos are not heavily regulated, and both the gamblers and employees consider themselves to be part of a tight knight community.

Russell and eight other defendants have pleaded guilty to their charges. Prosecutors have not yet indicated if restitution will be made, but Russell will likely spend two years behind bars as a result of his crimes. The eight other people involved will probably get lighter sentences because they have been cooperating. While bingo fans at the Potawatomi Casino lost out on big jackpots, at least they can rest assured that they will get a fair chance to win in the future. Officials from Potawatomi Casino have also indicated that they are changing the way that they administer all their bingo games.

Ohio Proposes Video Bingo Machines To Keep Casinos Out

Officials in Ohio fear that the casino industry is beginning cause lottery ticket sales to dwindle. In a measure that non-profits and officials hope will help to replace some of their lost gambling dollars, video bingo machine halls might be moved into the state. As casinos continue to open in almost every major city in Ohio, less people are purchasing lottery tickets, which means that the state is collecting less in tax revenues. Ultimately, the state government realized that lottery tickets were no match for video based gambling. Referred to as skill games, gambling machines give users a more interactive experience as opposed to scratch off tickets.

Although it is not known if or when these video bingo machines will be placed in Ohio, officials are working hard to put together a bill that would make them a permanent fixture in the state. As the state makes plans to make video bingo a large part of their gambling industry, non-profit charities are said to be main agencies that will benefit from them. By giving charities another source of income, most of them will be able to remain open. The lagging economy is reported to be the reason behind record low donations and contributions to charities in the state of Ohio and the rest of the US. A new type of license will have to be approved by Ohio legislators in order to allow for the operation of video bingo machines in the states. Officials are hopeful that the bill will be passed by January of 2011.

Liverpool’s Mecca Bingo Hall To Be Turned Into Department Store

Although Mecca Bingo Hall hasn’t been in operation since 2006, bingo lovers were more than miffed when they found that developers are opening a new home interior store in it’s place. Located at Switch Island Leisure park, bingo fanatics frequented the hall until it was closed and 28 employees were laid off. This latest announcement is only minor blip on the radar when compared to the UK’s long line of lost bingo halls. Not a lot is know in regards to the reasons why one of Liverpool’s great chain of Mecca Bingo Halls closed down. Some blame the popularity of online gambling, but a recent ban on smoking also drove bingo players to the confines of their homes.

While bingo fans are, by and large, not moved by this development, Dunelm Mill announced that the lost bingo hall’s location will mark their 100th store. With the grand opening slated for early December of 2010, shoppers will officially take over the spot once beloved by bingo players all over Liverpool. The spot sat vacant for four years before Dunelm Mill made their move. In response to this growing trend, a United Kingdom based website named  Playingbingo.com has opened a new section commemorating closed bingo halls. The area is called, ‘Lost Bingo Halls,’ and features historical blurbs and photos of the bingo halls in their prime. Fans are encouraged to provide information on unknown halls. With many of the UK’s bingo halls struggling to survive and relaxed online gambling rules encouraging the expansion of virtual bingo, the few halls left may not be around much longer.

Casino Unveils Interactive Bingo Game for TV in California

Since 1986, the San Manuel Indian Bingo and Casino, owned by the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, has been a primary stop for bingo fun and entertainment in Southern California. Not only does the casino feature 3,000 slots along with high limit gaming, it also has live poker, blackjack, and high stakes tables. To further heighten the fun experience of the casino, there is also a fantastic player’s reward program, many forms of live entertainment and dining.

Now, according to reports in the local media, the San Manuel Indian Bingo and Casino has decided to offer yet another type of entertainment to residents over the age of 21 in Los Angeles today, as well as a chance to win $500, in the form of a free to play simulated bingo game on the television. Each Friday, there is at least one $500 prize awarded, and there have been several winners already in West Covina, Laguna Beach, Riverside, and a few other areas. The decision to add a free bingo game to the advertising for the casino was natural, according to the executive director of operations for the casino, especially considering the affinity many people have for bingo.

The idea behind the game is similar to lottery scratch off cards rather than traditional bingo. After players register with this Los Angeles casino, they will receive an email every week containing two bingo cards. If a bingo is established on one of those cards after the Friday night ad for the casino shows the numbered balls that were dropped, players will enter a validation code by 11pm that Friday night to claim their $500 prize. Some bingo insiders say this could spark a tradition of similar bingo TV ads if it manages to hit critical mass in terms of its audience.

Defendants in Alabama Bingo Case Plead Guilty to Charges

In Montgomery, Alabama, eleven defendants – which included four state senators, three lobbyists and two casino owners, as well as two others, pleaded not guilty to federal charges after they were accused of conspiring to buy and sell votes for a pro gambling bill. The vote for the bill was intended to legalize electronic bingo casinos that had been shut down by Governor Bob Riley’s gambling task force the previous year on the premise that the bingo machines fall under the category of Vegas style slot machines which remain illegal in Alabama. According to reports, there was a federal jury indictment that was released on October 4th and was accompanied by the announcement of the guilty plea of a 12th defendant. The 12th defendant, Jennifer Pouncy, pleaded guilty on September 28th, admitting to offering a two million dollar bribe in exchange for a vote and that she had been authorized by Jarrod Massey, a lobbyist for the developer of the Country Crossing Casino to offer another 100,000 dollars in exchange for a vote, as well.

According to reports, the trial is set for April 4th and all the eleven defendants will be tried together. The defendants include Senators Harri Anne Smith, James Pruitt, Larry Means, and Quinton Montgomery. Other defendants include lobbyists Jarrod Massey, Thomas Coker, and Bob Geddie, as well as Legislative Reference Service Ray Crosby and spokesman Jay Walker. Means and Pruitt are the two defendants involved that Jennifer Pouncy named and admitted to bribing for votes when she pleaded guilty on the 28th of September.

Gaming Ever More a Woman’s World Too

The world of online bingo has long been a favoured place for women in the United Kingdom to get together to game and, in fact, it has been known that a fairly large portion of the online bingo fan base are female, but the world is changing even more today according to recent media releases. Now it is being reported that the number of women working behind the scenes in the bingo industry has risen sharply and is similar to the same trend happening across the rest of the online casino world. Women are now changing the way that the game companies work from within and using their own understanding of the female market of players in order to help create better marketing, but also to facilitate better game options for women gamers. More games are now being marketed that take into account women’s tastes in visual designs and specific types of games and promotions which would appeal to a feminine sensibility.

Soap operas are one of the leading ways that female gamers have changed the way that bingo companies on the web advertise to players. Since the soaps are high in proportion of female audience members, this makes a sound choice for those companies looking to bring in more female fans. According to a recent Nielsen Media Research poll conducted in the UK, more than half of players who gamble on the web are female and this has come as a major shock to gaming companies who did not realize just how feminine their audience really was.

Bingo Crooks Nailed on Stealing $830k From Charity

Crime is always a bad thing, but for those who are committing crimes against a charity group, the social out cry is usually far louder. This is the case in the New York City borough of Queens where a man named Spiros Mosopulos has been alleged as a master mind behind a huge bingo scam that involves the bilking of charities in Queens, cashing in on the kindness of bingo players in his city. The scam had actually been going on for a number of years in Queens and detectives had been on the master mind’s trail for almost 2 years by the time they brought him and his accomplices down. Among those who were arrested and charged by the Queens District Attorney were Daniella Radulescu who was the treasurer of the charities and a man named Tommy Skiada. All of those charged range in age from late 40’s to early 60’s. In all, more than $830,000 were stolen from the charities and that has brought more than 700 separate charges from the Queens DA. All sorts of side crimes were committed along with the bilking of the charities so the group of crooks is expected to do serious prison time if a judge does indeed find them guilty which most legal experts say is 100% likely at this point.

The bingo hall in questions was located in the Jackson Heights neighborhood inside a former theater. The criminals claimed to be serving the people and helping religious charities, but instead they lined their own pockets. All three pleaded not guilty in court.

PayPal Getting Back Into Bingo Market

In the United Kingdom, bingo continues its upward path to domination of the online gambling market and has continued to be a major source of income for the UK economy as a whole. Word has come to the forefront that things just may be getting even better for UK bingo fans as PayPal, Inc. of the United States, owned by Ebay, Inc. is set to get back into the online bingo payment processing business once again. The company exited in 2002 due to mounting pressures in the US where anti gambling legislation put a major damper on its ability to do business in the global market for online casinos, but now things are changing. This means that the world’s largest processor of online transaction is likely to do massive levels of business with bingo fans as the some of the largest payment processors in the world currently focus on this industry. PayPal representatives have spoken with the UK media to express that they believe the company will be able to offer UK bingo fans a great deal of value and a high level of security for which PayPal is known in its industry.

Most operators switched from PayPal in 2006 and went to their own versions of payment processing, but since PayPal is competitive and cost effective, its re-entry into the market could be a wise choice for many online bingo sites. The company believes it will be able to do millions of pounds of business in its first year should it follow through with current plans and many in the UK have told the press they would be eager to use PayPal if it did make a return.