Charity bingo games are being hurt by bans on indoor smoking, with attendance dropping as patrons turn to casinos where they can still light up while playing, the New York Times reported April 24.

Charity gambling revenues fell 13 percent after Minnesota adopted a statewide indoor-smoking ban, with the smoking prohibition blamed for half of the decline. Bingo players who once flocked to the American Legion post in Fergus Falls, Minn., now go to casinos or cross the border to North Dakota, where veterans' groups are exempt from the state's smoking ban. "It's had a profound effect on us here," said Charlie Lindstrom of the American Legion post. "We've sponsored several baseball teams here in the past, but we can't give as much now because the smoking ban has really reduced our revenue."

Charity officials in California, New Jersey, New York, and Washington also report that smoking bans have hurt attendance and revenues on bingo nights. Some say that smokers typically outnumber nonsmokers three to one at bingo games, and despair of finding nonsmoking players to replace the departed smokers.

Charities that raise money from gambling events also are being hurt by the proliferation of other legal gaming options, like casinos, and a struggling economy. Advocates for smoking bans, however, say that the negative impact of indoor-smoking laws tends to be short lived.