Are Bingo Halls and Arcades Exploiting Loopholes in the Law?
We have seen a great deal in the press recently regarding the application for “Adult Gaming Centre” licenses that Mecca bingo halls have been applying for. This is catching on and now a Shipley’s Amusement Centre and a Gala Bingo club have joined the foray and decided to apply for these licenses. I said only last week that it would only be a matter of time until other gaming operators caught on.
In essence what this means, is that the bingo club or arcade applies for a separate “Adult Gaming Centre” license and apparently they are able to apply for more than one. They split the premises and house highly lucrative ₤500 slot machines in the split premises under the new license. The more of these licenses they apply for the more of these machines they will be able to have. Each license allows four slot machines.
Shipleys has made an application for four separate licenses, this means sixteen machines in total and Gala bingo has applied for two. The Gambling Act restricts any one premise to for machines in total, and it was the specific purpose of the Act to restrict these machines. However, since these restrictions came into play, the land based bingo industry has been experiencing some hardships, and people are queuing to use the machines that are present.
If there is a market for this product in bingo halls and the people want to play on them, I say let them have it. Loopholes in the law will always be found to by people and will always be used regardless of whether this is in the spirit of the law. Fortunately this does not apply to online bingo games and you can find plenty of different slots games to play, no queuing required.
