Minnesota’s Gambling Control Board has approved electronic bingo games, which are expected to start filtering into the state’s bars and restaurants soon.
The technology allows players at different locations to compete against each other for jackpots that state officials say will range up to $75,000.
An executive with the St. Paul company that will provide the bingo games tells the Star Tribune he expects they will prove more popular than electronic pull tabs, which E-Tab Manufacturing also makes. He thinks the bigger jackpots available through the linked bingo games will attract more players than the modest payouts available with pull tabs.
Taxes on the electronic versions of charitable gambling are what Minnesota plans to use to pay the $348 million the state has committed toward construction of a new stadium for the Vikings. But so far, revenue from the pull tabs is running far short of what state budget officials had forecast.
