Wait, Apelah has a Bingo Hall?
There is an overwhelming perception that bingo is a game reserved for older women at church gatherings. For many people it brings to mind annual fairs or small events in the rec rooms of community centers. They’re not picturing a game where people line up multiple sheets in front of them, daubers in hand, ready to shout “BINGO!” at any moment in pursuit of a significant monetary prize. They’re especially not imagining that a game like this might be providing funding for the care of foster care children.
It often surprises people to find out that Apelah has a bingo hall, Bingo Bonanza, in Nesbit, MS for just this purpose. Charitable bingo halls in general have been a part of Mississippi gaming since 1992. They’re state-regulated arms of around 60 nonprofits and charitable organizations in the state. In fact, legally, bingo halls - operations that exist solely to provide bingo and pull tab games - are required to function in connection to charities. With the exception of those small games at annual events, there is no big-time bingo in Mississippi that is not charitable gaming. So, it leads us to ask, how did this happen? How did bingo come to be synonymous with charitable fundraising in the state? How is it regulated? And, maybe most importantly, what does that look like for Apelah?
The history of bingo in Mississippi starts with the history of gaming regulation in its entirety. State-regulated gaming was nonexistent in Mississippi for most of the 20th century. While small scale local gaming may have existed, there was no state sanctioned way to gamble. That changed however, through a controversy over a cruise ship casino in 1987. At the time, the Europa Star cruise ship would take on passengers in Biloxi, MS and then sail into the Mississippi sound in order to host its gaming activities. Because the ship remained within the bounds of Mississippi barrier islands, the state claimed that the ship was still within Mississippi waters, making their activities illegal. While the court case that ensued over the legality of the cruise ship casino moved its way toward the Supreme Court, the Mississippi legislature made the point moot by passing a 1989 law that allowed ship casinos in the sound and the 1990 Gaming Control Act, which broadened legal casino gambling to include riverboats and ships operating in counties with borders on the Mississippi River and the Gulf Coast. Today, Mississippi’s casinos still exist on vessels within the bounds of waterways connected to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico.
The 1990 Gaming Control Act opened the doors for what followed in 1992: the Charitable Bingo Law. This law allows for bingo halls to exist in the state, provided they are supplying funds to eligible charities. It outlines how charities could apply for a gaming license and how their bingo halls had to be operated. The Gaming Commission created in 1993 still oversees charitable bingo halls in Mississippi today, including Bingo Bonanza, Apelah’s bingo hall.
As with any law surrounding how charities and nonprofits operate, there are a lot of regulations. Here a few that are important to understanding how Mississippi bingo halls relate to their beneficiaries and the Gaming Commission:
There's a lot to report. From an inventory of supplies like bingo paper, pulls tabs, and daubers that needs to be counted in person to the details of sales and expenditures, each bingo hall has to include a ton of information on their monthly report to the Gaming Commission.
The person who signs the checks for prizes and to pay staff cannot be the same person from the charity who goes over the monthly accounting for the bingo hall. At Apelah, our bingo supervisor signs the checks, but our Associate Vice President of Development oversees the accounting.
Aside from the prizes given out during every game and expenditures such as staff pay and the equipment necessary to run games, all of the revenue from the bingo halls has to go towards “the purposes for which the charitable organization is created.” For Apelah, this means that 100% of our proceeds go towards direct services for our foster children.
Maybe next time you’re thinking about having a girls’ night out or a date night, you’ll consider going to play bingo. During any given session, the hall can give out as much at $7,500 in winnings. Of course, even if you don’t win a game, the money you spend will be doing some good in the world. For game times, check out the Bingo Bonanza website or our funding page.