Why is Minnesota the top state for pulltab gambling?

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They’re called bell jar tickets in New York. Nebraskans know them as pickle cards.

Here in Minnesota, we call them pulltabs. And Minnesotans wager more money than people in any other state playing this charitable game of chance, which has become a ubiquitous part of the state’s bar culture.

(For the uninitiated, pulltabs are two-ply paper tickets with perforated tabs. Players pull the tabs to reveal winning — or losing — combinations of symbols.)

A reader who is new to the state reached out to Curious Minnesota, the Minnesota Star Tribune’s community reporting project, to learn more about pulltabs’ unique presence here. He hadn’t seen this form of gambling before.

After some co-workers schooled him on the game during a happy hour, he was left wondering how the pastime got started and why it isn’t as popular in other states.

The short answer is that pulltabs were popularized in Minnesota half a century ago. They are legal in most American states. But Minnesota’s comparatively loose restrictions on when and where the game can be played provided ideal conditions for it to flourish at dive bars and Up North watering holes.

Minnesotans spent more than $4 billion on paper and electronic pulltabs last year, according to the state’s Gambling Control Board.

That makes Minnesota the biggest spender for pulltab gambling, according to the St. Paul-based National Association of Fundraising Ticket Manufacturers, a trade group for companies that make pulltabs. It is also popular in Alaska and North Dakota, which have much smaller populations.

In Minnesota, the game is typically played in bars. And it is overseen by nonprofit groups that raise money for charitable causes.

“You don’t feel bad about losing because the money’s going to charity,” said Mary Magnuson, president of the association.

Other states take a different approach. In New York and Pennsylvania, pulltabs are generally sold only at fraternal clubs, membership groups (like VFWs) or nonprofit fundraisers (like church picnics), Magnuson said. In Texas, pulltabs are usually played only between bingo games.

Wisconsin laws are more restrictive about who can sell pulltabs. The state-run lottery sells them in convenience stores, and some bars have pulltab vending machines.

The inventor of paper pulltab tickets is unknown, Magnuson said. But the game was developed in the 1950s.

“It started out as just very localized, small-stakes entertainment for fundraising purposes in veteran and fraternal halls, primarily,” she said.

The game first took off in North Dakota, after the state legalized charitable gambling in 1977.

Pulltabs soon crossed the border into Minnesota. “Bar supply salespeople were already peddling pulltabs to clubs and bars in rural areas” in 1978, even though they weren’t yet legal, according to a 1990 Star Tribune article.

The state Legislature legalized them in 1981. But cities and towns passed their own local regulatory ordinances. Minneapolis, for example, didn’t allow pulltabs until 1987.

After the state began regulating the game in 1985, officials quickly learned it had “really blown up, and become extraordinarily popular,” Magnuson said.

Problems followed the boom, however. A 1990 Star Tribune series found that “three of every four sponsoring organizations show signs of theft or other irregularities that should trigger state review or audit.”

These days, the Gambling Control Board regularly reviews groups to make sure they are in compliance with the rules. And the state Department of Revenue audits groups that run charitable gambling. Most youth sports associations use independent accounting firms to handle gambling finances.

Paper ticket sellers follow strict rules so that winning happens at random, Magnuson said, including dumping the packaged pulltabs into a new container to ensure they are mixed up.

“Then they have to mix it up again while it’s in that container, to triple ensure that there really isn’t any way to pick out the winner,” she said.

Minnesota legalized electronic pulltabs in 2012, giving players a digital version of the paper game. Paper and digital pulltabs are now equally popular, according to the latest Gambling Control Board report.

A large number of youth sports organizations across the state now depend on pulltab proceeds to pay for expenses like ice time and equipment.

A recent evening at Bull’s Horn Food and Drink in south Minneapolis illustrated the process and subtle etiquette behind the game.

A pulltab seller sat inside a plexiglass booth, often called a “jar bar.” A steady stream of customers purchased the games, which support Minneapolis youth hockey.

Groups pooled money to buy rounds of tabs — which is the custom — then opened them and discarded the losers into plastic baskets. Winners traditionally share the proceeds with their group, often buying a pitcher and tipping the seller.

The wood-paneled tavern owned by the husband-and-wife team of Doug Flicker and Amy Greeley was designed to evoke the small-town bar that Flicker’s uncles once ran in Pierz, Minn., south of Brainerd. It is one of the 3,026 permitted locations that host pulltabs across Minnesota.

For the couple, hosting nightly pulltab events was part of getting the vibe of the place right.

“You get the pulltab regulars, like you do up north, too. Folks sitting at the bar or in a booth, and there are just like, stacks and stacks of the pulltabs piling on the table,” Greeley said. “We’re pretty pleased with it. We think it adds quite a bit to the bar.”

The state last year issued charitable gambling permits to 1,144 nonprofit organizations, including veterans groups, fraternal groups like the Elks or Lions, youth sports, firefighter relief groups and others. Each organization has a gambling manager, who supervises operations. Sellers are employed by the groups, not the bar.

Each group secures a “premises permit” and pays monthly rent for the locations where they run pulltab games. They are usually in neighborhood taverns and sports bars.

“You typically don’t see them in fancy restaurants,” Magnuson said.

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