Friday, August 30, 1996

Bingo prize money, pull-tab games to change next year By MICHAEL BRICK
Harte-Hanks Austin Bureau

AUSTIN - Prize money in Texas bingo parlors could double next year and pull-tab games could become more varied and colorful under recommendations approved Thursday by a Texas Senate committee.

The Senate Interim Committee on Charitable Bingo also recommended transferring regulation of the industry from the Texas Lottery Commission to the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.
The 14-year-old bingo industry has struggled to compete with the Texas Lottery and riverboat gambling along the Texas-Louisiana border until a sales increase this year.

Committee members hope the changes will boost business for the bingo parlors that have generated $5.6 billion in Texas. Prize money accounts for 75 percent of money generated by bingo, and 35 percent of the remainder is required to go to charity by law.

The committee recommended raising the legal prize maximum from $2,500 to $5,000.

"It allows (charities) the opportunity to raise money to provide services that otherwise would not be funded locally," said Sen. Eddie Lucio, D-Brownsville and chairman of the committee.

Lucio cited Boys and Girls Clubs and shelters for battered women among charities that depend on funding from bingo.

The committee also recommended allowing more variety in pull-tab games, where players buy tickets similar to those used in the lottery.

Lucio said the current law requiring pull-tab games to bear the Texas Lottery seal and use only bingo symbols limits the "creativity and variety" of the games.

Critics contend the possible changes in Texas' bingo laws are being spearheaded by lobbyists for the operators and lessors that run bingo halls and will not benefit the charities.

"What they're trying to do is moving bingo into real gambling," said Weston Ware, associate director of the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission in Dallas. "This is in response to a campaign by bingo operators and lessors as opposed to the people the law was originally set up for, the people who just wanted to play bingo."

Lucio said his decisions were based on discussions with charity workers in committee meetings around the state. The duty of regulating the games may move to the the Licensing and Regulation department after bingo operators complained of feuding and distrust with the Lottery Commission, which they see as a competitor, Lucio said.

Harriet Miers, chair of the Lottery Commission, said a different agency would take a long time to learn to regulate the bingo industry.

The Licensing and Regulation Commission will oversee anything the law requires, said Jim Brush, general counsel for the commission.

Charitable bingo is legal in 47 states.