Some Bar Bingo Is Illegal, Attorney for State Says
St. Mary's Sheriff Plans to Seize Many Devices

By Jenna Johnson and Philip Rucker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Under an opinion issued this week by the Maryland Attorney General's Office, many of the hundreds of video bingo machines that have appeared recently in St. Mary's County are illegal, prompting the county sheriff to plan a massive seizure of the devices beginning as early as Friday.

Some of the devices violate a statewide ban against slot machines, according to the nine-page opinion by Assistant Attorney General Kathryn M. Rowe. Under the opinion, others might be legal but are used in ways that are not -- concentrated, for example, in greater numbers than are allowed in a bar or restaurant.

The opinion, issued after a request by Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert), comes as state lawmakers weigh emergency legislation to ban the machines. The proposal has broad support in both chambers, and Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) has said he will sign it.

Miller said yesterday that such a law is still needed.

Although the opinion outlines limited circumstances under which some of the machines might be used lawfully, Miller said it confirms what he has said in recent weeks: that "these machines are illegal."

St. Mary's Sheriff Timothy K. Cameron, who had considered the machines legal, said the new opinion clarifies some legal issues. Tomorrow, he said, deputies plan to visit the 22 locations known to have the machines and collect information about how they operate. Once that is done, authorities could begin to seize machines as soon as Friday, he said.

"The attorney general has really whittled down what all of these laws mean," Cameron said. "We can finally go in and tell people if they are or are not in compliance with the law."

The state's highest court, the Court of Appeals, held in 2001 that instant bingo devices could be legal if their mechanism of operation does not include the element of chance, separating them from slot machines, which many are designed to resemble.

Rowe wrote that instant bingo machines loaded with preprinted tickets displaying winning or losing combinations are legal under some circumstances. Theoretically, she wrote, the preprinted tickets could be removed from the machine and sold manually.

The same cannot be said, she wrote, of machines that contain a computer chip with preprogrammed outcomes to be printed at the time of play. Rowe concluded that those "cartridge machines" are illegal.

According to distributors, cartridge machines make up the majority of the devices that have appeared in bars and restaurants in St. Mary's. The machines are operated by nonprofit organizations, and the proceeds are shared by the machines' distributors and by the owners of the premises on which they are placed.

In the opinion, Rowe cited recent Washington Post reports in which the owners of bars and restaurants were quoted saying that they were paid a percentage of the proceeds from the instant bingo machines.

"It is clear that the qualified organizations involved in this practice are far from its primary, much less, its exclusive beneficiaries," Rowe wrote, concluding that arrangements under which a "large percentage" of the proceeds is paid to the owners of the premises where machines are located are illegal.

Frank Moran and Sons, a Baltimore-based vendor, has no plans to remove its 80 cartridge machines in St. Mary's and will seek a meeting with Cameron this week, said Bruce Bereano, the company's lobbyist.

"These are all opinions," Bereano said, pointing to an earlier opinion from State's Attorney Richard D. Fritz that he said supported his position. "The opinion that matters the most is the Court of Appeals. I firmly believe, and others also believe, that the machines my client has placed in St. Mary's County and elsewhere are legal."

Scott Rudge, owner of Coles Point Tavern, which has 10 of the company's machines, said he would remove them if necessary. "I guess I'll have to see what everyone else is going to do about it," Rudge said. "If it's true, there would be a lot of disappointed people."

The county's machines, most of which have been installed in recent months, have been a windfall for churches, volunteer fire departments and other nonprofit organizations.

Alternatives for Youth and Families, which provides mental health services, has received about $26,000 since December from 15 machines at Fred's Liquors in Charlotte Hall, said Executive Director Donna B. Bennett. Without that money, she said, the organization might have to scale back its services.

"I am concerned," she said. "Are we going to be able to maintain all of these programs? Can we keep all of our group homes open?"

Although it is particularly detailed and comes from the office of the state's top law enforcement official, the opinion made public yesterday is only the latest of many on the topic.

In the past year, manufacturers and distributors of the machines, nonprofit organizations and others have sought guidance on the legality of the devices from prosecutors and county officials across the state.

In many instances, they hauled their machines into county offices, discussed the differences between the devices and slot machines, and offered their own interpretations of the 2001 appeals court decision.

The overtures met with resistance in most counties, but Fritz said some of these machines were legal in St. Mary's, and more than 350 popped up in fewer than six months. The machines also quietly appeared in smaller numbers in Western Maryland, and they began to pop up in Prince George's County until State's Attorney Glenn F. Ivey declared them illegal in October.

Allegany County State's Attorney Michael O. Twigg said he issued an opinion about three years ago saying that certain machines were legal, but he later retracted the opinion when more requests poured in.

Twigg's decision to stop issuing opinions angered Frank Moran and Sons and prompted a letter from Bereano in September that was reprinted in the Cumberland Times-News.

"I am just flabbergasted at your refusal, respectfully, to do your constitutional job as state's attorney," Bereano wrote. "Respectfully you are the only state's attorney in the state that I have been dealing with that has put your head in the sand and refused to look at any machine."

The 2001 decision opened the door for other manufacturers to jump into the paper-based video bingo business, said James A. Breslo, president of Diamond Game, manufacturer of the Lucky Tab II machine. Diamond Game began to place the machines in Maryland bingo halls and civic clubs more than a year ago after receiving favorable opinions from Anne Arundel, St. Mary's and Allegany counties.

The company says on its Web site that it designed the Lucky Tab II, the machine that the Maryland appeals court ruled legal, when Native American groups in Oklahoma and Alabama could not secure permission to operate slot machines. The Lucky Tab II, it says, "looks and plays like a slot machine" but is not one.

"We spent all of this time, money and energy taking these machines through four appellate courts, and you get all these copycat companies that go in and steal this business away from us," Breslo said. "The state's attorneys are not necessarily schooled on the differences in these machines. . . . a lot of them are getting duped."

Breslo said the new opinion negates the need for a law banning the devices.