Bingo is emperor in Georgia. Georgia is where Bingo all began in America, way back in Nineteen Twenty Nine. However during the years after Bingo appeared (from Italy) at a fair in Georgia, the game had been outlawed along with most other forms of betting.
In 1976, Bingo was made legal for non-profit agencies. Since Bingo is one of only 3 kinds of gambling allowed by the law in Georgia (along with raffles and the state lottery), the game has develop into a big crowd pleaser.
There are around 200 bingo operators in Georgia today. Georgians brought in above 35,000,000 dollars in income for its Bingo operators in 2005, for an average of around 130,000 dollars per operation. Georgians won over Twenty Million dollars in prizes during the same period. Georgian non profit organizations saw $1.5 million in proceeds from the Bingo industry.
Georgia has a few of the strictest bingo regulations within the U.S. Operators are limited in the amount of cash prizes they can pay out at any one time. Games can hand out prizes with a $1,500 per session and three thousand dollars per week, which is far lower than the restrictions in certain other states.
The Georgia Bureaus of Investigation: Bingo Unit oversees bingo games in the state. Within the last 25 years, close to 50 businesses have lost their permit in Georgia for recurring violations of the local gambling regulations. The result is that almost all bingo parlours in Georgia are Veterans of Foreign Wars and assistance agencies, the type of organizations which operate a game to pay for their non-profit actions.
Naturally, as long as bingo is a big cash venture, there will be individuals who find a way to skirt the rules. With 12,000 or more folks working in the charitable wagering sector of Georgia, the Bingo Unit is going to be busy in the years to come.