Bingo parlors rake in millions
The city’s two video bingo parlors have brought in more than $4.2 million in gross profits during their first complete year of operations, according to estimates based on city tax collections.
The two parlors pay a 20 percent tax on their total take to the city each quarter.
Together, they paid $848,673 in city taxes on revenues from Oct. 2, 2006, through Sept. 30 this year.
The yearly estimates are based on the city’s latest quarterly tax collections for video poker, which is also the fourth public accounting of the parlors’ business.
In the period of July through September, the parlors brought in an estimated $1.1 million in revenues and paid the city $224,240 in taxes.
Video bingo is much like video poker in that users insert money into machines to play the games.
However, video bingo machines are used by sponsoring charities for fundraising purposes and are regulated under laws other than those controlling video poker.
The parlors — Cypress Palace Bingo and Hammond Bingo Palace — opened their doors on Oct. 2, 2006, which was more than a year after the City Council enacted a controversial ordinance in 2005 authorizing video bingo inside city limits.
Mayor Mayson Foster vetoed the ordinance, but the council overrode the mayor’s veto.
Video poker was outlawed throughout Tangipahoa Parish by a local-option vote in 1996.
A quarter of the city’s video bingo revenue goes into a reserve fund for a proposed children’s museum. For the latest quarter, $56,060 was set aside, officials said.
The remaining tax revenues were earmarked solely for capital-improvement projects by the City Council last month. For the latest quarter, $168,180 will go into a capital-improvements fund.