Saturday Night Bingo
- posted by Jim Leitzel @ 11:12 PM

Uh, I mean, blog post, this is a Saturday Night Bingo blog post.

Bingo has been having such a tough go of it, of late. The smoking ban and competition from other types of gambling are taking a toll on the industry. But bingo is resilient. In Lexington, Kentucky, a judge has ruled that smoking can take place at bingo fund-raisers, on the grounds that the organizations that sponsor the bingo (such as high school booster societies) are private clubs, and hence exempt from the county public smoking ban. The prosecutor is resilient, too. While claiming that the judge's ruling is correct, the prosecutor says that citations will continue to be issued and the resulting cases prosecuted, even as he also seeks to have the county legislation altered to take make sure that bingo smoking can be quenched. Apparently not all of the previous citations were directly overturned by the judge's ruling, so the prosecutor intends to pursue those, according to the linked article: 'We're not going to give a bunch of people a free walk here...' No, mustn't allow a free walk.

In Triana, Alabama, city officials seem OK with charity bingo, even the electronic version that can be a far cry from the traditional game. But the county sheriff (another 'no free walk' type?) has taken to sending deputies to raid Triana bingo parlours, seizing money and machines in the process. So city officials have gone to court to try to put a stop to the sheriff's activities.

Speaking of non-traditional bingo....

Labels: bingo, gambling