Drawing for The Queen of Hearts game on hold while future is discussed

We italicized “the” in the headline because we have no doubt there is only one Queen of Hearts game of chance in the state, if not the nation, with a jackpot approaching $1 million.

That game, which has been hosted by Barry Dyngles Pub in Austintown for almost a year, is certain to attract national attention. After all, how many neighborhood bars can boast of having thousands of customers – even though many of them will disappear once the queen of hearts has been picked?

Indeed, with an anticipated crowd of 15,000 for the next drawing, Barry Dyngles’ owner, Shawn Hannon, postponed Wednesday’s event. The reason: Hannon has been trying to come up with the ideal location to accommodate the thousands of ticket-holders hoping to hit it rich.

The postponement means that more $1 tickets will be sold before the next drawing. There are now eight cards left on the board out of the original 54.

But the postponement also provides an opportunity for the state to come in and conduct a formal audit of the ticket sales.

As state Sen. Bill Coley, R-Butler County, chairman of the Joint Committee on Gaming and Wagering, made clear last week, he wants to ensure laws are not broken and that the applicable state and local agencies are able to monitor Barry Dyngles’ Queen of Hearts game.

“Up to this point, we have no reason to believe that the regulatory agencies don’t have all the tools they need,” Coley said after a meeting of the committee at which various state officials voiced their opinions. “But we want to make sure that as a responsive Legislature, we ask those questions.”

The chairman then added this: “We’re making sure that all the records are properly kept and that all the funds are disbursed according to law.”

Record-keeping and payment of prizes must be the focus of the state as it reviews – or should review – every game of chance conducted in Ohio.

No complaints

As we noted in an editorial earlier this month when we raised the issue of oversight, Barry Dyngles is not violating any state statutes in sponsoring its Queen of Hearts game, nor have there been any complaints from people who have been buying tickets to participate in the weekly drawings.

But with the jackpot hovering around $1 million, the state needs to do more than simply monitor how the game is conducted.

Hannon, the pub owner, has said he welcomes any state oversight because a review of the records would show that everything has been done according to the applicable statutes.

Earlier this month, Sen. Coley told The Vindicator that the Ohio Department of Commerce Division of Liquor Control and the Office of Ohio Inspector General have oversight of the Queen of Hearts game.

“I think that all the businesses can just assume the fact that the inspector general will be coming through to look at their books,” he said. “The Inspector General’s Office, my guess, will definitely be investigating all of these to make sure that they are” operating legally.

Thus the question: Has the IG’s office conducted a review of Barry Dyngles’ books, and if it has, what, if anything, did it find?

Beyond that, there remains the issue of the payout. Under the rules adopted by the Austintown pub, if the winning ticketholder is not present at the drawing in which the Queen of Hearts is picked, half the amount in the jackpot is rolled over into another pot of money for the start of a new game.

“We’re doing some checks into the law [to see if] that still qualified as a pool,” Coley said earlier this month.

Pete Thomas, chief of the Ohio attorney general’s charitable law section, said last Thursday that the way Barry Dyngles handles payouts when winners are not present could prompt legal questions.

We would hope that such questions are answered prior to the next drawing because by then the Queen of Hearts game will be so huge, in terms of money and the number of ticketholders, that it will have same status as some of the gambling options offered by the Ohio Lottery, which is closely monitored.