So everyone seems to be up in arms that a Boston Store bingo game was shut down.  But is it really all that surprising?  Let's look at a couple facts shall we?

Scores of irate writers and callers, many of them senior citizens, contacted the Journal Sentinel on Wednesday after the newspaper published a story reporting that bingo games played for more than two decades at the store's Cream City Cafeteria on Monday, Wednesday and Sunday afternoons were busted.

Greendale Police Chief Robert Dams said he felt he had no choice but to order the games shut down after state officials contacted him. Dams said he had been told that churches, which may legally run bingo games, had complained.

So let's start right there.  Churches, which are the only real groups that legally can run these, complained.  And why shouldn't they?  They have to go through all sorts of licensing and crap to do something that shouldn't need licensing in the first place.  Why should the Boston Store get a free ride?  But then again, why should any of this need licensing in the first place?  Let the people gamble!

Sloey said a game is considered illegal gambling if three elements are present - the award of a prize, winning that involves chance rather than skill, and a cost to play.

Sloey noted that bingo is a game of chance; that Boston Store was giving out small trinkets as prizes; and that players had to buy dinner, which several diners pointed out cost $7.70, not the $6.95 that was reported earlier.

Gotta love that.  Of course the state has no problem running a lottery which does the same thing, and makes a tidy profit from it.  Not only that, but so do the Indian tribes.  Of course, the poker games that I go to from time to time are just as illegal now aren't they?  The fact that a Republican, Mary Lazich, is trying to fight to correct this is laughable.  Republicans are the worst nannies when it comes to gambling.  From gambling in the state, to Internet gambling laws, the Republican Party has zero credibility here.  Why should little old ladies get to have fun playing bingo when I can't play poker in my own home?

Sloey said the state allows non-profit organizations to run bingo games and hold raffles, but they have to get a license from his department. The state gets 1% to 2% of all the money the non-profit agencies take in, he said.

Oh.  That's why.  Maybe if I gave the state a cut of the rake, then they'd let me play poker.