Bingo halls throughout Greenville, Mississippi are still in an uproar over the recent smoking ban passed in the city back in October. Hollywood Bingo, a business that is under the Mississippi Gaming Commission and is thus permitted to run only assuming every profit is given to a charitable organisation, was giving two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year to the Southern AIDS Commission, but now estimates less than one hundred fifty thousand dollars for the coming year.
The average amount of customers has also dropped over ten percent in most bingo halls, taking away a large chunk of revenue. While the ban was passed to improve the state of health amongst the local residents, it is proving to damage the local gambling economy. Approximately twenty-five percent of nightly gross profits have been lost due to the new ban, businesses are claiming, as many of the usual bingo player’s smoke.
While the smoke ban excludes casinos, it is still enforced on bingo halls. This policy is something the law’s opposition wishes to address. As there is a maximum limit constraining the amount of games a bingo session can have, bingo halls cannot schedule more games to cover the loss, which the smoking ban is causing. Costs can be up to sixty percent of the gross profit, states Mississippi laws, so the lowered cash flow could even cause some of the bingo businesses to close down. As such, many are laying employees off to make ends meet.
