Bingo’s not just a game — it’s a community

A lot of numbers are floating around a packed, smoky Clovis Bingo Hall, and only some of them are coming from the bingo caller.

Shannon Witt, 42, a volunteer (they call themselves indentured parents) at this night’s Buchanan High School fundraiser, is concerned with these numbers: pep squad uniform (including hair ribbon and pom-poms), $447.45; cheer camp, $125; cheer sweats, $210; rhinestones on cheer sweats, $33; rhinestone T-shirt, $30; team backpack, six T-shirts and sweat shorts, $167.45. With tax, a grand total of $1,033.39.

Working the bingo games, Witt earns credits to offset her daughter’s school expenses. Witt’s been making the equivalent of about $20 a night, twice a week, for three years.

Bingo player Linda Schaeffer, 64, is keeping track of her monthly bingo budget – a $675 pension check. She says most of the people sitting at her table spend at least as much as she does. None of them disagree.

Then there’s the number that 1960s rock group Three Dog Night once dubbed the loneliest: One.

People pack the bingo hall to be with other people.

“I started coming after my mother died,” says volunteer Barbara Gibbs, 50. “I needed something to do with my time. I didn’t want to be alone.”

The hall doesn’t open until 6:15 on most bingo nights, which are Saturday through Tuesday. The crowd typically starts forming about 4 p.m. By 5 p.m., it’s hard to find a parking place in the aging shopping center on Bullard Avenue.

Clovis, Calif., is a city that prides itself on a sense of old-fashioned community, family values and good schools that produce accomplished scholars and athletes. Clovis is like taking Garrison Keillor’s fictional Lake Woebegon, “where … all the children are above average,” and resettling it around rodeo grounds.

But all those letterman jackets for the above-average children can cost $400 to $500. That can leave parents scrambling. So, at bingo, community and cash cozy up.

Kim Smith, 48, a parent volunteer with two high school-aged children, watches Saturday night bingo players surrounded by ashtrays, half-filled Styrofoam coffee cups and good-luck charms; she invokes the city’s oft-quoted slogan:

“Clovis – a way of life.”

Charlotte MacDougall, 79, frequently described as a firecracker, has china-doll blue eyes, soft white curls and a self-described bingo addiction.

“I don’t know what I’d do if it wasn’t for bingo,” she says. “I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. And I meet so many nice people here.

“And some not so nice,” she adds in a hand-shielded, whispered aside.

Even though MacDougall doesn’t smoke, she always sits on the smoker’s side of the hall. The divide between the smoking north side and the non-smoking south side goes deeper than the use of tobacco.

Those on the smokers’ side say folks in the north hall are a rowdy, hard-edged bunch.

The south hall-ers say the non-smoking section (where people really do shush talkers) is filled with people who can’t multi-task and don’t know how to have fun.

Tensions between the two sides heightened recently when Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a state bill to ban electronic bingo. The law goes into effect Jan. 1; charity bingo representatives say it could cut revenues by 40 percent.

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Players at the Clovis Bingo Hall still daub paper cards, and admire the prowess of those who can play a dozen at a time – colorfully marking numbers shouted out by a bingo caller. But they also have been playing bingo electronically, using small computers. Players decide how many electronic cards they want to play on the machines and then pay the bingo operators accordingly. The machines have a wireless connection to the bingo game and automatically mark electronic cards with each called number. Players also can enter numbers manually.

Indian tribes successfully contended that these electronic machines violate gaming compacts with the state.

The Clovis hall tried to get customers to sign a petition protecting the computers – saying that banning the machines would hurt fundraising. Different school organizations and charities pay a share of the rent for the hall and take turns running the bingo games, receiving the profits from their night. Profits can be designated for specific uses, such as helping parents pay for pep squad uniforms.

Those in the shushing, non-smoking side overwhelmingly rejected the petition. They want to return to traditional bingo, where those who can daub the most paper have better odds of winning.

The smoking, computer-favoring side almost unanimously signed, favoring conversation over concentration.

“I don’t want to think too much. Our beloved governor ruined that,” says MacDougall with a vigorous shake of her white curls.

She points to Schaeffer, a bingo buddy who always sits across the table from her.

“She can play six cards like nobody’s business and even get up and get coffee,” she says admiringly.

Schaeffer and her husband, both retired from the grocery business, moved in 2001 to Clovis from the San Francisco Bay area.

“We didn’t know anyone. I found myself a bingo hall, and that’s how I made all my friends,” Schaeffer says.

Now MacDougall and Schaeffer are fixtures in their specific seats at their specific table just about every night. Bingo players tend to be territorial. MacDougall plays three paper cards, Shaeffer six, and they both play electronic bingo machines. Electronic bingo costs between $41.50 and $61 to play 36 to 48 cards. Paper bingo costs $15 for a pack of six cards; there are discounts for bulk purchases.

Radios aren’t allowed in the hall, but MacDougall, a rabid Bulldog football fan, brings one anyway and listens to games with an earpiece.

“A few weeks ago, she screamed out ’Touchdown!’ and the caller thought she had a bingo,” says Schaeffer.

If MacDougall or Shaeffer aren’t coming to bingo, they call the hall so no one will worry. Even when they aren’t there, no one sits in their chairs.

“They wouldn’t dare,” says MacDougall.

She describes the excitement of winning – having a card where the drawn numbers form a specified pattern, usually a straight line.

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“Your heart starts pounding when you see your number. You get real disappointed if someone else says ’Bingo!’ too and you have to share the prize. But if you see the other ’Bingo’ isn’t good, they made a mistake or something, then you cheer, but really softly so no one hears.”

A regular bingo game, with a single winner, pays $250. “Hot” bingos – where a designated number must complete the pattern – can pay $1,000.

It’s not your grandmother’s bingo – or maybe it is.

“When I was a teenager, my grandmother and mom use to play bingo in the trailer park,” says Ed Gibbs, 44, of Fresno, Calif. “I thought it was the craziest thing. Then I got older and realized why they liked it: You get to hang out with people. It’s a common thing.”

Gibbs started coming to the Clovis hall about a year ago as a player. He met Barbara – one of the volunteers who sell bingo cards and coffee and occasionally call out bingo numbers – and now they are newlyweds planning a honeymoon trip to Disneyland.

“A lot of couples meet at bingo,” says manager LuAnna Scott. “We have at least three married couples who met here.”

And then there’s a gentleman who shall remain unnamed. He dated so many bingo regulars that volunteers nicknamed him “Bingo-Ho.”

“Some volunteers were relieved when he finally got married,” says Scott.

The man and his wife and his many ex-girlfriends still all come to the bingo games.

MacDougall is single, but she says she never flirts.

“You get friendly with them and then something happens and they die and you feel so bad,” she says with a dismissive wave of her hand.

This starts people at her table to talking about the times people have died at bingo.

“I was calling the night the one lady died,” says J.P. Done, a volunteer who on this night gets to play a free game for his 30th birthday. “I stopped the game for five minutes. No one has sat in her chair since then.”

Death, courtship, politics, friendship, and the placing of coffee orders all play out as the caller shouts out numbers. Players mark their cards to see if a pattern will emerge from randomness and give them a pay-out.

LuAnna Scott, the hall manager, says the bingo hall is a hub of connection.

“It’s a community,” says Scott. “Everyone here, whether they’re working or spending money on bingo, is helping our schools.”

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Destrie Rathwick, 44, of Sanger, Calif., who plays four days a week, screams “Bingo!”

She has just won $1,000 on a “hot” bingo.

“I’ll go spend the money on bingo,” she says. “I’ll bring it right back here.”

Bikini Body Bingo

“Europeans know how to dress. No one knows how to take off their clothes like Brazil,” intoned the tape played before every show in Claro Rio Summer, summing up the obsession this nation, and its fashion industry, has with the body beautiful.

The action kicked off, or rather got pumped up, on Friday morning, the second day of the three-day season, with a book signing ceremony on Ipanema beach for the latest offering by Vanity Fair Fashion Editor Michael Roberts. Entitled “Saved” after a phrase from this city’s iconic song, La Garota de Ipanema, it’s a colorful reportage of Rio’s characters – life guards, models, street kids, beach soccer players, whose common denominator is their well buffed form.

“It’s about my time spent living right here on Ipanema, and the people one meet’s on the beach. In Rio they can look sensational,” said Roberts, as a score of foreign editors sipped on capirinhas and admired the afore-mentioned physiques.

Few of them were wearing much in the way of clothing other than swimsuits, shorts and oodles of veiled tops; which was pretty much the case on the runway too in the shows this weekend

At Iodice, whose program termed the clothes a “cruiser collection,” one saw a huge amount of silk and organza veils twisted and hung into almost soft furnishings for the human body. The clothes were not all that innovative, but they had a certain panache, and one could imagine lots of women wearing these looks anywhere from Marbella to Harbor Island. Iodice which retails in some 500 sales points and sells in Saks and Neiman Marcus, should be able to find consumers amongst the new bourgeoisie in emerging markets like Eastern Europe, whose idea of paradise is precisely to wear loose fitting colorful shrouded fashion in sunny resorts in the Med.

Friday’s best-presented show was by Rosa Cha, where a local singer crooned through a live “Nouvelle Vague” style reinterpretation of Boss Nova, the Brazilian musical movement that celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Staged on a catwalk that was a very shallow pool, the models walked on water, attired in spider web strand bikinis, silk off-the-shoulder shrouds and some stunning floral patterned separates. But, by Rosa Cha’s snappy standards, this was not a stellar show and the all rose hued finale did not smack of luxury.

Also on display in the Forte Copacabana, a tent complex built on a beautiful promontory on the Atlantic Ocean where most shows were staged, was Cris Barros, whose frilly dresses and curvily cut cocktails were an impressive display of merchandise. Some local cynics dismissed Barros as more a socialite than designer, but this show made clear she has talent.

But the coolest fashion moment of the day was the store presentation of Isabela Capeto, who took over a block in Leblon, Rio’s ritziest beachfront neighborhood, with bars, hot dog stands and peanut vendors. Capeto’s crazy pattern, hyper colorful, frilled and lacy frocks captured the energy of this great melting pot city better than any collection seen on a runway so far in the season.

The day’s event climaxed when four score of visiting editors, buyers, stylists and photographers partying with the wealthy elite of Rio in a magnificent villa of the Otero family. As the guests downed rivers of Moet, the brilliant samba Grande Rio dancers leapt and shimmied through the crowd that included Natalia Vodianova, Valentino and UK blue blood, and cousin of the Queen, Lady Gabriela Windsor – all of them getting down too.

Boasting splendid views of the city, a mature garden featuring frangipani trees and an impressive art collection, the villa was located right underneath Corcovado and the giant statue of Christ, who seemed to cast his improving arms over the fete and the leggy dancers bedecked in crystal bikinis, huge crowns and giant ostrich feathers, in a word, very little clothes. Brazilians do do undressing better than the rest of us.

William Hill Bingo Sponsor New ITV Gameshow

For the first time, online gaming site William Hill Bingo has stepped in to the world of television programme advertising with the announcement that they will be sponsoring the brand-new daily ITV gameshow Spin Star.

William Hill Bingo’s sponsorship deal will start on Monday 10th November, when the Spin Star show is launched, and it is a 6 week deal comprising of various length bumpers at the start and end of the show and in and out of advertisement breaks. The theme of the bumpers supports the bingo community feel that sits with bingo and the show encapsulates the slots games that sits within William Hill’s Bingo site.

The Las Vegas style show will appeal to a similar demographic to William Hills popular Bingo site and the excitement of the game reflects the William Hill Bingo Thrill catchline used in the programme bumpers. Following on from the success of their recent month long television advert campaign, the sponsorship of the daily Spin Star show is an excellent fit for William Hill Bingo.

“We’re very pleased to have the opportunity to sponsor Spin Star. It’s an incredibly lively and entertaining show with plenty of surprises and excitement, as we always offer on our website” said Hills’ spokesperson Lili Huang. “We are aiming to solidify our bingo image and increase national recognition, and sponsoring Spin Star is a perfect opportunity for us.”

Spin Star is a brand new game show hosted by popular former Coronation Street star Bradley Walsh. The main stage will be dominated by an enormous Las Vegas-style slot machine which contains questions and cash prizes and the contestants can build up a prize pot of hundreds of thousands of pounds to win at the end of the show.

During the game, contestants will experience the unpredictability and big cash gamble that only casinos can offer, and viewers will certainly feel the pain and joy as much as the contestants do.

The sponsorship is not the first mass marketing campaign that William Hill Bingo have been involved in. Following the national TV campaign in summer, William Hill have just finished another TV campaign which focused on their supports of Breast Cancer Care through the Pink Ribbon games. This activity was enhanced by the re-design of the website which saw increased functionality, new games and more visible promotions.

Spin Star will be showed at 3:30pm to 4:30pm every afternoon on ITV1. At 4:30 after the show, a free bingo game will be held on William Hill Bingo website.

Would the real Don Cherry please stand up?

Don Cherry would likely give Joy Osterhout a thumbs up.

The two share the same sense of style.

They also share a desire to help Ontario bingo halls, an incredible source of revenue for local youth organizations and service clubs.

Osterhout beat out five other women in a contest for who could dress most identical to the popular CBC hockey commentator during bingo at the Belleville Lions Hall Saturday night.

The contest was an effort to recruit new customers to bingo, in light of dwindling attendance levels across the province, spurred by a sluggish economy and more competition for gamblers’ dollars.

And it worked for Osterhout. She hopes the contest will be a yearly event to make people more aware of the proceeds bingo halls raise.

“I hope this is something that catches on,” said Osterhout, a regular at the Lions Hall. “We have a lot of (clubs) that are really worthy, especially in this area.”

Osterhout was a unanimous choice as the favourite. She wore a red and blue plaid blazer, nearly identical to one the real Don Cherry was wearing in a cardboard cutout picture inside the Lions Hall.

Her hair was also flattened with a coat of white paint to resemble Cherry’s buzz cut. She also made a goatee out of the fluff of one of her dog’s toys.

When introduced by a judge, she drew a wild applause from a larger-than-normal crowd at the event.

Dan Collins, manager of the hall, estimated the crowd at about 225. A typical Saturday night crowd, he said, would be 140.

There are many new bingo sites that offer online gamers free play

Bingo is also known as a popular family game. It is common to see families playing together while visiting their loved ones. The grandpa fills the card and the grandson yells “bingo” in his little voice.

In some parts of the world, bingo has become more adaptive to the different needs of various generations. For example, to make bingo games easier for the younger players, the numbers are being replaced with recognizable pictures of dogs, cats, chairs, bags and other common items. These pictures can be understood even by a four-year-old.

Bingo is played until someone wins the game so that every game produces at least one winner. Regular Bingo games can sometimes produce more than one winner if more than one player achieves Bingo on the same call. The prize that can be won in a Bingo game is displayed besides the name of the Bingo game pattern that must be matched to win ,the only thing is you must follow the strategy of bingo carefully.

Just as there are many online casinos competing for new players, there are many bingo rooms doing the same – and using many of the same tactics, such as welcome bonuses and loyalty incentives. Although it would be unrealistic to say the following uk bingo rooms are the only good one’s out there. the bingo news is also flashed in this site.

Crown Bingo CMs take the Crown in CM of the Year Vote

Crown Bingo has been awarded the CM of the Month title for October. The poll, conducted by the CM of the Year website, collected votes from online bingo players from all over the UK, with Crown Bingo receiving the most votes from UK bingo players to be awarded the accolade.

With an incredible journey to the top spot, Crown Bingo began the race in 4th place after the first week. After slipping down to 11th place in week two, they bounced back to hold onto the top spot for the final two weeks! CM Star polled the most individual votes to help the 15-strong Chat Team to the top spot.

Talking about the team’s win, CM manager Andy Osman said: “I am very happy and so proud of the CMs. We have a fantastic team who do a great job in creating and maintaining such a welcoming and fun environment for our players.”

Chat and community are vital parts of Crown Bingo who host a dedicated community section of the site as well as a blog, Facebook page and numerous community based promotions. There are now six bingo rooms available at Crown Bingo, each with a dedicated chat room where team bingo, tournament bingo, chat games and quizzes take place on a regular basis.

Managing Director Dan Smyth said: “We have a fantastic chat team at Crown Bingo and it’s great that this has been recognised in the CM of the Month awards.”

Crown Bingo have a full schedule of promotions planned for November and December, including a Thanksgiving themed bingo promotion at the end of the month and the launch of a big new feature next week. With a big Christmas Special planned for December, Crown is set to see out the year with a series of great promotions!

Don Cherry to host province-wide bingo night

Don Cherry will be doing double duty Saturday night.

As well as his usual stint on “Hockey Night In Canada”, Cherry will be the video host at bingos across the province,  billed as “Bingo Night In Ontario”.

The Umbrella Group for bingos came up with the idea to promote the game and raise money for charities.

At the 61 bingos taking part, players will be competing to win a $200,000 full-card jackpot, a $20,000 outside square prize and a $1000 in-hall consolation prize.

The head of the Ontario charitable gaming association says bingos have raised more than 80 million dollars over the years, supporting women’s shelters, food banks, children and youth programs, health and cultural organizations.

More than 60,000 Ontarians volunteer at bingos across the province.

Subscription model fights gaming piracy

A subscription model for online gaming can combat piracy in the gaming segment as the sector gains increasing importance in the region.

With a large number of gaming products being translated into Arabic and a large chunk of the population belonging to the 18 to 25 age group, the region has become a good business platform for game developers and vendors.

Dubai-based MaktoobMaktoob

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, a business portal, has an online subscription model for its gaming division and has also developed its own payment model. The portal also has a focus on research, blogs and women’s issues, and its popular souq.com is an established player in the region.

The business portal’s alternative online payment method for its website is called Cash u.

Sriram Sharma, product manager at Cash u, said: “The online payment model started in 2002 as an alternative to credit cards and the growth came from teenagers who did not have access to credit cards. Even the penetration of credit cards was low in many parts of the Middle East. We have partnerships with retail establishments and with resellers. Therefore, the card is bought, scratched and just refilled. Now we have tie-ups with at least 150 online gaming merchants.”

With such an online payment model in place, it becomes difficult to break gaming codes on multiplayer games played online. “In single player browser-based games it is possible to crack codes but a subscription model helps control this as they follow a payment method. Users pay at least $10 (Dh36) a month to play these games and this helps combat piracy to a large extent. For all the effort put in by game developers, you need a model like this to support them,” said Sharma.

‘Travian’, an online browser-based multi-player strategy game, has been one of the most popular ones on MaktoobMaktoob

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, which supports at least 30 languages, including Arabic. The website launched the Arabic version seven months ago and has at least a million users using Cash.

Sharma says, multiplayer online gamers get access to all features by using its e-commerce platform and the company has had its largest growth – 60 per cent – from this segment.

Martin Waldenstrom, general manager at Cash u, said: “The largest number of users on the site are Arabs and when MaktoobMaktoob

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games started it was only for casual gamers with four to five million users per month. This ranged from Morocco to Iran, and soon we realised there was huge potential. Now we are speaking to game developers across the world and even local Arabic game developers. International gaming companies are investing into translating games for the market. This helps the user base get big and with the interesting demographic here it makes a lot of business sense.

Online users have an option of using credit cards but the younger population does not have access to these credit instruments. The Cash u card does not need documentation like credit cards.

“In online payments in the region, there is competition from ‘One card’ based in Saudi Arabia, who work more with ISPs. When we started with Cash u it was used more for web hosting and helping online commerce in the region, as there was a lot of untapped business potential in the online space. If you have not formed a company, you can still sell your services as the processes are made easier,” Waldenstrom said.

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Looking deeper into iMEGA’s Kentucky appeal

The first volley in what is anticipated to be a number of appellate challenges to the ruling in the Kentucky domain name case has been lobbed by the Interactive Media Entertainment and Gaming Association (iMEGA), the trade association representing many of the affected domain name registrants.

Last week iMEGA’s attorneys filed a 55-page writ seeking to overturn the ruling by Kentucky Circuit Court Judge Thomas Wingate granting forfeiture of 141 domain names to the Commonwealth of Kentucky, as well as his earlier seizure order which gave Kentucky control of the domain names. iMEGA is also seeking dismissal of the case its entirety.

“Gambling devices,” legal standing at issue

In its writ, iMEGA identifies a number of procedural and legal errors by Judge Wingate, beginning with the claim that the judge wrongfully found jurisdiction against the domain names despite the fact that they are not tangible and have no presence in Kentucky.

The writ also claims Judge Wingate erred by misapplying the Kentucky statue that pertains to the seizure of “gambling devices” which, iMEGA argues, refers only to physical items located in the state and not to intangible domain names.

The relevant Kentucky statute is unambiguous in its definition of a gambling device as being either a slot machine or: “Any other machine or any mechanical or other device, including but not limited to roulette wheels, gambling tables and similar devices, designed and manufactured primarily for use in connection with gambling and which when operated may deliver, as the result of the application of an element of chance, any money or property, or by the operation of which a person may become entitled to receive, as the result of the application.”

iMEGA argues that Judge Wingate exceeded his authority by expanding the definition to include domain names, in effect rewriting the statute.

The issue of Judge Wingate’s denial of iMEGA’s legal standing to represent any of the domain name registrants is also raised in the writ. iMEGA represents registrants, or “users,” of the domain names that are issued by a registrar, such as GoDaddy or Network Solutions.

iMEGA had appeared at the forfeiture motion on behalf of its member registrants, but the court ruled – contrary to the law, according to iMEGA – that it lacked legal standing to appear in court on their behalf.

Beyond additional jurisdictional arguments that were raised, the writ also invokes a number of constitutional issues. It argues that the Kentucky action results in prior restraint of commercial speech in violation of the First Amendment by taking away the domain names which are used to advertise the Web sites.

Further, the authors of the writ argue that Kentucky’s seizure of the domain names violates the Commerce Clause by interfering with interstate commerce, a protectionist move to benefit Kentucky’s gambling industry at the expense of the rest of the world.

The writ takes special objection to the manner in which the Commonwealth first obtained the seizure order, which iMEGA asserts was a violation of their members’ First Amendment and due process rights. The hearing was “ex parte,” meaning the defendants had no notice or opportunity to participate.

Only the Commonwealth presented evidence to the judge, and the entire court file including the seizure order itself was sealed until five days after the order was handed down. Thus, iMEGA argues, the members’ domain names were seized without any opportunity for them to defend themselves in court.

Attorneys for iMEGA indicated that they filed the writ now rather than waiting until after the Dec. 3 forfeiture hearing because of the “irreparable harm” which would be suffered by their members if the Commonwealth took control of the domain names and immediately moved to close them.

The respondents to the writ have 10 days to file a written response to iMEGA’s petition. When their response is filed, or when the 10 days has elapsed, the matter will be submitted to the three-judge appellate panel for its review.

If the appeals panel rules against iMEGA, their next step is to appeal to the Kentucky Supreme Court. Based on their allegation of “irreparable harm,” it is expected that iMEGA would then request a stay of the forfeiture hearing pending that appeal.

Next step

As of now, the judge has ordered the defendant domain names to prove to the court that they have geo-blocked their sites from Kentucky residents, or turn their names over to the Commonwealth. So far only one company, MicroGaming, has complied with the court’s order and geo-blocked Kentucky residents from accessing the online poker rooms that are part of its poker network.

Judge Wingate had originally set Nov. 17 as the date for the forfeiture hearing, but has moved the hearing to Dec. 3. This delay is a result of a request for a Motion for Stay made last week by another online gambling association, the Internet Gaming Council (IGC). Judge Wingate ended the hearing on IGC’s motion by stating he would “take the request under advisement.”

It is unclear what will happen on Dec. 3 if the foreign registrars simply refuse to come to court and hand over the domain name Web sites. One domain name registrant, Golden Palace, has submitted an affidavit asserting that it does not belong on the list of “unlawful gambling sites,” but the judge has indicated that a separate hearing on that issue will have to be scheduled.

There are dozens of other registrars located outside of the United States and without their cooperation it is unclear how Kentucky will actually take possession of their domain names.

Call for boycott

There has been a growing movement for an organized protest against the actions of the Commonwealth of Kentucky and, specifically, its governor, Steve Beshear, who spearheaded the domain name seizure action. Last week, Online Casino Advisory’s Senior Gaming Analyst Sherman Bradley called for a boycott of all gambling in the state of Kentucky.

The boycott was picked up by a number of Web sites, including domainnamewire.com which listed “ten ways to pressure Kentucky to drop its assault on the internet,” including boycotting Kentucky’s own online gambling Web site, TwinSpires.com, and its big sports/gambling event the Kentucky Derby. The site also suggests writing to Beshear’s office.

There is also a Web site devoted solely to the boycott, aptly named BoycottKentucky.com. As stated on the site, “BoycottKentucky.com was created to educate the public about the over-reaching and unconstitutional actions of Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear and to harness the economic, political and social pressure necessary to force a reversal of his actions”.

The site has a number of suggestions for ways to have an impact on various businesses operating in Kentucky who might then put pressure on the governor to drop the lawsuit. There is also a petition on the site for supporters of online gambling to sign and forward to the governor’s office.

In addition to the petition, BoycottKentucky.com is also organizing a call-in campaign for this Friday, Oct. 31, asking those opposed to Kentucky’s actions to flood Governor Beshear’s office with phone calls opposing Kentucky’s unprecedented and outrageous attack on the Internet.