Bingo, pull-tabs and the charitable-gaming licence: where each jurisdiction stands
Paper and electronic bingo, pull-tabs and instant bingo, jurisdiction by jurisdiction: who may hold a licence, what the game may pay, where the money has to go, who is forbidden to be paid for running it, and how far an electronic device may go before the law calls it a slot machine.
Bingo, pull-tabs and the charitable-gaming licence: where each jurisdiction stands
Each entry below was checked against its official source; the date is on the entry. Entries that could not be checked are not shown.
- Published entries
- 76
- Latest source check
- 2026-10-12
- States and territories covered
- 16
- Entries held back
- 10
- Permitted or licensed16
- Restricted or conditioned0
- Prohibited0
- Pending change0
- Position recorded0
- No published position40
Text version of the map
| State or territory | Status | Source check |
|---|---|---|
| Arizona | Permitted or licensed | Verified at source on 2026-10-12 |
| Florida | Permitted or licensed | Verified at source on 2026-10-12 |
| Idaho | Permitted or licensed | Verified at source on 2026-10-12 |
| Iowa | Permitted or licensed | Verified at source on 2026-10-12 |
| Kansas | Permitted or licensed | Verified at source on 2026-10-12 |
| Minnesota | Permitted or licensed | Verified at source on 2026-10-12 |
| Montana | Permitted or licensed | Verified at source on 2026-10-12 |
| Nevada | Permitted or licensed | Verified at source on 2026-10-12 |
| North Carolina | Permitted or licensed | Verified at source on 2026-10-12 |
| Ohio | Permitted or licensed | Verified at source on 2026-10-12 |
| Oklahoma | Permitted or licensed | Verified at source on 2026-10-12 |
| Oregon | Permitted or licensed | Verified at source on 2026-10-12 |
| Pennsylvania | Permitted or licensed | Verified at source on 2026-10-12 |
| Texas | Permitted or licensed | Verified at source on 2026-10-12 |
| Washington | Permitted or licensed | Verified at source on 2026-10-12 |
| Wisconsin | Permitted or licensed | Verified at source on 2026-10-12 |
Select a state on the map, or choose one above, to read its position and its sources.
Federal, tribal and other bodies
- Federal The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of October 17, 1988 put bingo, and pull-tabs, punch boards, tip jars and instant bingo played in the same place, in class II, and left electronic and electromechanical facsimiles in class III. The Commission’s definitions took their current shape on June 17, 2002. Verified at source on 2026-10-12
Latest changes
Ohio writes electronic instant bingo into the definition of bingo itself and then forbids the reveal on the screen to use spinning reels that resemble a slot machine.
Ohio Rev. Code § 2915.01, Ohio Laws and Administrative Rules · Verified at source on 2026-10-12
Ohio requires the instant-bingo fundraising contract to be written on the Attorney General’s own form, and names the two forms and the month they are dated.
Ohio Admin. Code ch. 109:1-4, Charitable Organization Bingo, Ohio Laws and Administrative Rules · Verified at source on 2026-10-12
The Ohio Attorney General raised the statute’s own two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar instant-bingo threshold to three hundred and thirty thousand by rule, so the figure a reader finds in the Revised Code is no longer the operative one.
Ohio Admin. Code ch. 109:1-4, Charitable Organization Bingo, Ohio Laws and Administrative Rules · Verified at source on 2026-10-12
Texas repeals four subsections of its bingo chapter in one act, including the first subsection of the prizes section.
Occupations Code ch. 2001, Texas Legislative Council (Internet Archive capture, Apr. 2024) · Verified at source on 2026-10-12
Texas amends its bingo temporary licence for the sixth time in fifteen years, in a session where a second bingo act was also passing.
Occupations Code ch. 2001, Texas Legislative Council (Internet Archive capture, Apr. 2024) · Verified at source on 2026-10-12
Minnesota writes a closed list into the purpose of its gambling chapter, authorising only the games and the game features the chapter itself discusses.
2023 Minn. Laws ch. 64, Office of the Revisor of Statutes · Verified at source on 2026-10-12
Ohio lets a charity run a raffle with no bingo licence at all, and charges the broader tax-exempt classes half the net profit for the privilege.
Ohio Rev. Code § 2915.092, Ohio Laws and Administrative Rules · Verified at source on 2026-10-12
The Supreme Court of Alabama decides three appeals in one opinion, holds that electronic bingo is illegal in Alabama, and orders the machines at VictoryLand and at White Hall shut down as a public nuisance.
Slip opinion, Supreme Court of Alabama, released September 30, 2022 · Verified at source on 2026-10-12
Ohio, by rule, makes anyone who touches the money in an electronic instant bingo machine a bingo game operator, which is the class the statute forbids to be paid anything.
Ohio Admin. Code ch. 109:1-4, Charitable Organization Bingo, Ohio Laws and Administrative Rules · Verified at source on 2026-10-12
Ohio is the jurisdiction here whose Attorney General licenses the middleman as well as the charity, and forbids that distributor any ownership interest in a bingo premises.
Ohio Rev. Code § 2915.081, Ohio Laws and Administrative Rules · Verified at source on 2026-10-12
Ohio is the only jurisdiction on this page with a bingo rule chapter of its own under the Attorney General, and eighteen of its twenty-one rules took effect on one day in December 2021.
Ohio Admin. Code ch. 109:1-4, Charitable Organization Bingo, Ohio Laws and Administrative Rules · Verified at source on 2026-10-12
Ohio closes the supply chain at the top: a manufacturer of bingo supplies holds a five-thousand-dollar Attorney General licence, posts a fifty-thousand-dollar bond, and sells to nobody but a licensed distributor.
Ohio Rev. Code § 2915.082, Ohio Laws and Administrative Rules · Verified at source on 2026-10-12
Changes here bear on bingo and charitable-gaming opinions: Charitable exemption, Licensing.
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