Bingo ‘Palaces’ Facing Tougher Restrictions as Result of L.A. Action

Bingo games that pay prizes to players, a $50-million growth industry in the city of Los Angeles, were hit with new restrictions Tuesday aimed at increasing the cut that goes to charity.

In a unanimous vote, the City Council tentatively imposed rules suggested by police and other city officials to crack down on large bingo “palaces” that some blame for luring players away from smaller charities that use bingo for fund raising.

Nightly bingo sessions at any one location will be limited to 40 games to reduce the amount of prize money available. Next Aug. 1 the number of players at each session will be limited to 350, although new bingo operators will have to meet the new limit as soon as the council gives final approval next week.

Games run by senior citizen organizations come out better under the new rules. The city Department of Social Services, which licenses all bingo in the city, will begin to issue three-year permits so that the seniors groups--who may run games only during daytime hours--do not have to reapply every year.

Other bingo game operators may find the rules more onerous when it comes to paper work. The council’s rules, worked out in negotiations with charities and police officials, require bingo operators to keep better track of their cash flow and buy supplies from firms licensed by the city of Los Angeles.

Bingo has become a major recreational activity--and a potential concern to law enforcement-- since gambling in bingo games became legal in Los Angeles 10 years ago as a way to help nonprofit organizations raise funds.

In 1978, Los Angeles bingo games took in $7.4 million. By 1986 the games were pulling in $35.6 million a year, and this year the Department of Social Services predicts operators will report a take of about $50 million at 80 bingo operations in the city. Only about 10% has gone to charity uses, department General Manager Robert Burns said Tuesday.

With so much money at stake, the games have attracted entrepreneurs and others with only slim connections, if any, to existing charities, city and police officials have complained.

Games run by these groups have turned into “massive Las Vegas-type of operations,” Councilman Ernani Bernardi charged Tuesday.

Operators of some smaller bingo games praised the new rules, especially when the City Council dropped a plan to permit an organization to hold only one bingo session per week in place of the three now allowed.

Big Brothers of Greater Los Angeles and United Cerebral Palsy both sent representatives to the City Council on Tuesday to speak in favor of the new rules. However, the operators of some larger bingo games were not as pleased.

Identity, a Woodland Hills group that claims to run the largest bingo operation in Los Angeles, nets about $20,000 a week and may lose $5,000 a week because of the changes, President Edith Ryan said Tuesday.

Nearly 500 people play bingo at Identity on Saturday nights. “What they’re telling us to do is to cut down to 350 and still make the same profits,” Ryan said. “We’re not going to be able to do it.”

Gambling on the bingo letters and numbers brings in more than $3,000 every Wednesday and Saturday night at Bishop Mora Salesian High School in Boyle Heights, said business manager Rene Quitiquit.

Old, loyal players may get turned away by the new limits, but “if that’s the new rule . . . then we have to follow it,” Quitiquit said.