Top 5 Crazy Bingo Laws

Bingo – it’s all about rules. Buy your tickets, daub your numbers, don’t talk during a game, don’t shout ‘House!’ unless you’re sure. Online bingo has always been a little more relaxed, but it’s still fundamentally a numbers game, which means the laws of statistics will always apply.

However, there are plenty of other laws that apply to this ever-popular game, including some that are well-known – such as the smoking ban in bricks-and-mortar bingo halls in the UK – and others that you might not be aware of, such as rules limiting UK bingo operators from running linked games with their counterparts overseas.

The reason behind that last rule was to do with taxation, and if it seems a bit over-the-top, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet…

5. How Much??

Our first of several visits to the good ol’ US of A begins in Bensalem, Pennsylvania, where you’re only allowed to operate bingo at all if it’s for the good of mankind.

In particular, the local Ordinances state that licences will be granted only if the proceeds of the game are to be put towards one or more of a fairly short list of acceptable uses.

These include religious education, protection against disease (which gives the old call of ‘doctor’s orders!’ a whole new meaning…), paying for a bit of amateur dramatics, and helping out the government by paying for some of its services.

However, it’s unlikely that you’ll ever manage to drum up much profit because, if you’re operating a bingo game in Bensalem, you’re not allowed to tell anyone what the prize is worth.

Yep, the Ordinances clearly state, in Sec. 105-12 (entitled ‘Advertising’), “It shall be unlawful for any club or person to advertise the prizes or their dollar value to be awarded in games of chance, provided that prizes may be identified on raffle tickets.”

It’s a bewildering combination of rules that’s worth stating again, just to be clear:

• a Bensalem bingo game can only make money for certain altruistic purposes;
• these include repairing public property, paying for government services, religious education, health protection, and putting on plays;
• but you can’t tell anyone beforehand how much money they’ll be able to win.

It all sounds like double Dutch to us – Pennsylvania Dutch, that is.

Even more weirdly, though, the bulk of these rules are not entirely unusual, and many of them also apply to the example we’re about to look at in fourth place on our list.

Despite coming from half a world away, Australia’s non-profit bingo industry is subject to several very similar regulations to that of Bensalem.

For instance, non-profit organisations in South Australia can only use proceeds from a bingo game for certain approved activities, including medical treatments, religious education, promoting science and/or the arts, and protecting animal welfare – sound fairly familiar?

Here again, operators are not allowed to advertise their sessions in terms of the prizes that can be won, or in terms of winning at all, and are limited to simply stating the date, time, venue and operator’s name and licence number.

With the same rules applying in two different places on opposite sides of the world, we can’t really rank them any higher than fifth place on our list – even though they sound a little odd at first.

4. Tea and Biscuits

If you’re a non-profit organisation running a bingo game in South Australia, the Lottery and Gaming Regulations 1993 have something pretty interesting to say.

They’d actually be in with a chance of getting Australia to the top of the list, if only they specifically mentioned goldfish (more about that later), but even so these Regulations are ingenious enough to make it into fourth place on this top-five rundown.

What do they say to deserve this? Well, it’s something you wouldn’t ordinarily associate with Australia; it’s something much more distinctly British.

According to the Government of South Australia’s Office of the Liquor and Gambling Commissioner, non-profit organisations hosting bingo games in the area are not allowed to offer any incentive to entice people into playing.

They can charge for tickets, but entry into each session itself must be free, with only the cost of the individual bingo cards paid by players, and no obligation to take part in every game of a session.

But there’s an exception to this, a way in which Aussie operators can incentivise people into joining in. And it’s tea and biscuits.

Yes, apart from the prizes themselves, the only things you can give away to people in return for them joining in your games are light refreshments.

As a result, Aussie bingo players can expect to get any or all of the following for free when they play:

• cold drinks
• tea
• coffee
• biscuits
• cakes
• sandwiches

However, alcoholic drinks may not be given away for free, even on licensed premises; they must be paid for at the usual commercial rate.

Maybe it’s just the British point of view speaking, but the notion of giving away tea and biscuits to entice people into a bingo game seems just a little silly.

And it doesn’t stop there, because if you provide such refreshments for free, you can pay for them out of the prize fund!

The total cost of running the session, including paying for those refreshments, can be deducted from the gross income from selling tickets, before the final prize fund is calculated.

As a result, that ‘free’ tea and biscuits could contribute towards total deductions of up to 20% from the prize fund – which might not sound quite so enticing to the average Aussie punter, if they were to become aware of it.

3. Hurry Up…!

If you’re a charity in North Carolina, you’d better make sure your bingo sessions don’t last more than five hours.

Organisations that don’t pay tax – such as charities, other non-profits and public bodies – are listed as ‘exempt’ from North Carolina’s usual rules regarding bingo.

But that’s OK, because they have their own laws that apply to the bingo games they run – and those laws are utterly mental.

Under Chapter 14 of the North Carolina General Statutes, an exempt organisation is only allowed to run bingo sessions twice a week, and not on consecutive days (see page 14 in this PDF).

Each time, they must last for no longer than five hours, regardless of how many games are played; no one game can be for prize money of more than $500, and the session as a whole can be worth no more than $1,500, unless it’s your only session of the week, in which case it can be for a total of $2,500.

If you’re already confused, it’s about to get worse, because if two charities use the same venue for their meetings, the second one isn’t allowed to host bingo games.

“No more than two sessions of bingo shall be operated or conducted in any one building, hall or structure during any one calendar week and if two sessions are held, they must be held by the same exempt organisation,” the local law clearly states.

If you want to get round this limitation, however, the solution is given in the very next sentence of the General Statutes – just hold your bingo session as part of a fair or exhibition, and none of the limitations apply. Or you could just have a 90-ball game, as the law only defines ‘bingo games’ as including those played using the numbers 1-75.

Not only is the total prize fund capped, but organisations are even told what they can and cannot do with any profits; bizarrely, the law says that, once they’ve covered their costs (which must be paid for using sequentially numbered cheques), whatever’s left must be put towards scientific endeavour, or sporting recreation, or some other purpose that is in the public’s best interests.

2. Creche Organised, Number Two!

Yes, I know that header makes no sense, but that’s the politically correct future of bingo in the UK.

In December 2009, the BBC and many other British news services reported that the weekly bingo session in Sudbury, Suffolk, had been affected by some well-meaning legal advice.

Former town mayor John Sayers, who at the age of 75 might seem unlikely to willingly cause offence to anyone, told the broadcaster that the council had been warned against calling ‘two fat ladies, 88’ on the off-chance that there might, in fact, actually be two fat ladies in the audience who would take it personally.

As a result, John – who hosted the weekly sessions at the town hall – opted to keep it simple and merely call the numbers, without any of the traditional phrases.

‘Legs eleven’ was another casualty of the correctness-inspired cull, as it was deemed potentially discriminatory to compare the two straight lines of the number 11 to a pair of human legs.

“I don’t like it,” admitted Mr Sayers to the BBC. “No-one had ever complained about being offended, but they moan now; they say it’s boring, and I think just saying the numbers is boring too.”

He added that the cheeky calls are “the tradition of the game, and part of our language” – and to long-term fans of British bingo, that’s perhaps the saddest part of this story.

But Sudbury Town Council were late to the party where ludicrous political correctness was concerned, as way back in August 2007, UNISON published its own set of bingo cards, complete with a list of suggested calls to replace the traditional rhymes and sayings.

If you were to play UNISON’s Equality Bingo, you’d be listening out for any of the following – and this list is so insanely ridiculous that we’re going to republish it in its full glory:

1. confidentiality improved
2. creche organised
3. disability leave agreed
4. discrimination case win
5. equality reps trained
6. flexible retirement
7. flexible working
8. gender reassignment policy
9. lunchtime meetings
10. migrant workers recruited
11. monitoring consultation
12. more black managers
13. more low paid activists
14. more women stewards
15. new harassment policy
16. partners’ pensions
17. prayer room provision
18. ramp installed
19. SOG branch officers
20. young members organised

This literally is political correctness gone mad, and there are only two reasons why it didn’t make the top spot in this countdown.

Firstly, UNISON were slightly tongue-in-cheek when they published their bingo sheets, and we suspect they may have known how stupid their list of suggested calls really were.

But secondly, because across the Atlantic in the USA one final time, there’s a law that sparks the imagination so well, it appears in almost every list of weird laws – not just bingo laws, but any laws – that’s ever been published online.

1. No Free Fish

Easily our favourite crazy bingo law comes from Athens-Clarke County in Georgia, whose Code of Ordinances includes a section entitled ‘Animal giveaway’.

In principle, the law makes good sense, and is probably designed to prevent the mistreatment of animals of any kind by allowing them to be used as an incentive to enter into any kind of bet, wager, or even a business deal.

But in practice, it means giving away a goldfish as a consolation prize – an act so common in UK fairgrounds that it has become almost synonymous with sideshows and other casual gaming scenarios – would be illegal in Athens-Clarke County.

The law states: “No person in Athens-Clarke County shall give away any live animal, fish, reptile or bird as a prize for, or as an inducement to enter, any contest, game, or other competition, or as an inducement to enter a place of amusement, or offer such animal as an incentive to enter into any business agreement whereby the offer was for the purpose of attracting trade.”

Perhaps weirdest of all, if you’re reading that closely enough, it seems it would be legal to give away a dead fish as an ‘inducement to enter’ a game of bingo; it’s only those that are still alive that are out of bounds.

Of all the rules and regulations we’ve ever come across, this is the one that seems to really stand out, and while we’re all in favour of protecting animals from cruelty, the over-the-top wording of this law, and its downright weirdness, earns it the number-one spot on this list.