Bingo Halls Eagerly Awaiting Government Decision on Wednesday

Bingo halls have been hit hard in the past several years. New smoking bans have hurt business in nearly every gambling hall in London. Couple that with new laws put in place last year that limits the number of machines an establishment can have, and there is chaos in the industry.

Bingo halls are heavily anticipating a decision from government on Wednesday that would loosen the limits to help out the struggling industry. The government is weighing several options on how to lighten the law.

"If there was simply a set number of machines everyone could have it would be open to abuse. People would say that they were opening a bingo club but really it would just be a slots hall," said an industry source to Reuters.

At issue are 500 pound jackpot machines. How many of them each bingo hall could have in use is the question. Three options have been offered by operators. First, they would have the number of machines be linked to the size of the bingo hall.

The second option would allow a maximum number of top-prize machines to be capped at fifteen. The last option would be to allow twenty percent of all the machines in an establishment to be 500 pound machines.

The government is expected on Wednesday to announce the option which they have chosen that would raise the maximum amount of 500 pound machines from four to whichever option they chose.

June 25, 2008
Posted By Susan Torres
Staff Editor, CasinoGamblingWeb.com
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