It is Now Illegal to Play Board and Card Games in South Carolina

Welcome to another game news bulletin, where you won't read yet another story about the exciting chance to get your city listed on Hasbro's new UK Here and Now Monopoly board, or about Settlers of Catan finally going live on the Xbox, since you can read all about those stories on a hundred other blogs.

South Carolina

Anyway, as the title says, it is now illegal to play board or card games - actually, any game with dice or cards - in South Carolina. Way to go doing your job, local government. This joins the rank of all-time stupid South Carolina laws, such as not being able to have a horse in your bathtub.

Update: Actually, the law is over 200 years old, but it is still occasionally enforced, like this 79 year old woman and her friends who were recently arrested and fined for a house poker game.

Hotels and Board Games

Not including my stories about Chicago Hotels doing this thing with board games this summer, I've seen a number of other Hotels and Resorts around the world advertising that, along with their fancy jacuzzi and golf facilities, they offer a library of board games for their guests.

The Fig Tree Manor in Houston offers them. According to an email I received from the owners:

The board games are housed in a small table, which has five drawers, checkers/chess, Chinese checkers, backgammon, tic tac toe, as well as decks of card and one drawer which is felt lined for dice games. We also have horse shoes and bocce ball. This "pool house" has an antique table and four chairs.

Meanwhile, the Cameron Highlands Resort in Malaysia offers hot stone massages, tea baths, "fast internet access and an inviting library with deep-cushioned sofas and board games", including (again, from an email response they sent me) Monopoly, Scrabble, Mastermind, and Chess.

Where Good Play Trumps Good Sense

The Post-Star covers a Glenn Falls Scrabble fund raiser where cheating was declared legal (if you pay for the privilege).

Blog Happenings

Trabsact reports on the Board Games Studies conference that happened last week at St. Pölten.

Yours in a White Wine Sauce points us to Beneath the Waves, a freely downloadable steampunk submarine war game.

Meanwhile, on the Home Front

Rachel beat me at another game of Puerto Rico yesterday. The first set of plantations was three sugars, and the next was three tobaccos. Rachel started us off and had two quarries by round five or so, and then forced a strong building strategy to beat me.

And I thought I was doing well with a four-good Factory going. She won 57 to 47.

Yehuda