Sheriff’s Dept. Rescinds Backing of Bingo Hall ‘Slots’

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has rescinded a “mistaken” endorsement of a slot machine-type gambling device for use by bingo operators.

A county attorney told the Business License Commission on Wednesday that further examination of state law and legal opinions determined that a machine that plays video versions of paper “pull-tabs”--a $1 instant-win game sold at bingo halls--is a “prohibited slot machine.”

The commission’s March licensing of a company that sells such machines--and a comment by a sheriff’s sergeant that the department “has no legal basis for objecting”--have been cited by Indian tribes to help justify their use of similar devices in reservation gambling halls throughout California.

Under a 1988 federal law, tribes can offer high-stakes versions of any form of gambling legal anywhere in their state. Indian gambling promoters readily acknowledge that they have been trying to find machines that play like slots, but which they can defend as legal in states, such as California, that ban those lucrative devices.

With pull-tab machines, players insert $1 to $20 bills, then push buttons to uncover rows of symbols--cherries, cowboy hats and the like--on a video screen. If three symbols match, the machine spits out paper credits, which they can cash in.

The president of the licensing commission, Stanley Rothman, said recently that he misunderstood the device, envisioning merely a “computer or software” to help bingo operators keep track of paper pull-tabs they sell. Rothman said he didn’t dream it was a large, stand-up machine in which players insert money. “That’s a slot machine,” he noted.

Sheriff’s officials said they gave the commission “mistaken” advice in March, when a sergeant told the panel that they had examined a sample pull-tab video device and were “very pleased with what we saw.”

A new analysis, written by another sergeant, Gregory A. Chapin, concluded that the device met the three criteria for an illegal gambling machine in California: operation by money, coin, or object; an element of chance; and “something of value” given winners.

“It is therefore construed that electronic video pull-tab machines, though a facsimile of paper card pull-tabs, are not authorized,” Chapin wrote.

On Wednesday, the business licensing panel voted to call back the bingo supply company, Auto Tab Distributors, based in Monterey County, to discuss the law. A company official would not comment.

The Sheriff Department’s reversal is the second blow in a week for Indian gambling promoters. Last Wednesday, Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren urged local law enforcement agencies to take “appropriate action” against illegal gambling machines on reservations, including seizure of the devices. Lungren also announced formation of a task force to keep tribal gambling “squeaky clean.”

A group of tribes, in turn, warned Lungren that such a crackdown would be “patently unlawful” and could provoke confrontations. They maintain that only federal authorities have jurisdiction over reservation gambling.