Bingo machines said to violate pact

By Onell R. Soto, STAFF WRITER
September 6, 2008

California’s gambling watchdog agency will consider next week whether the Sycuan Indian band has violated its compact by having more slot machines than allowed under its agreement with the state.

At issue are bingo-based machines that operate with one touch of a button.

California Gambling Control Commission staff and federal regulators say such machines cross a line separating bingo from Nevada-style games, which are regulated differently.

Sycuan officials say the 217 or so extra machines in question are bingo, and the tribe is not violating its compact at its casino near El Cajon.

The commission is scheduled to discuss the issue when it meets Wednesday in Sacramento.

“That’s the first step to the process to require compliance on the part of the tribe,” said Howard Dickstein, a Sacramento gambling law attorney who is not involved in the case.

If the commission finds Sycuan is in violation of its compact, it could ask Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to take action, which could include entering into talks with the tribe, threatening legal action or going to federal gambling regulators, he said.

Neither the commission nor the governor, through spokeswomen, would say what their regulatory options are.

The compact the tribe signed with Gov. Gray Davis in 1999 limits it to no more than 2,000 Nevada-style slot machines, considered “Class III” under federal law.

The tribe can offer additional, “Class II” machines in which the play is determined through a bingo game, but the new machines cross that line, commission staff said.

“Based upon National Indian Gaming Commission . . . standards that presently exist, electronic bingo devices with the one-touch characteristic are not considered Class II devices,” Anna Carr, a spokeswoman for the California commission said in an e-mail.

Commission investigators surveyed the Sycuan casino in June, she said, and found the casino was operating more slot machines than its compact allows, when you count the bingo machines as Class III.

Carr would not say what’s on the table for the commission to consider or whether a similar issue has come up before with an Indian tribe. Nor would she make available the commission’s staff report on the issue.

A call to the commission’s top lawyer was not returned.

The commission’s power to regulate Indian gambling is under fire. This week, tribes threatened a lawsuit if the state follows through on a plan to impose standards on how they run their casinos.

And to complicate matters, the state’s lawyer, Attorney General Jerry Brown, sided with the tribes on the standards issue Thursday.

Sycuan officials maintain they have the right to offer the single-touch bingo machines.

“As far as I know, it’s a crock,” Sycuan lawyer George Forman said of the state’s position. “These are not slot machines.”

Dickstein, who represents North County’s Pala Indian band, said the distinction is key, particularly to tribes such as Pala, which are paying millions of dollars to the state for the right to operate more than 2,000 machines.

“If you obliterate the distinction between Class II and Class III, you can appreciate there’s no need for a compact at all,” he said.

Debate over what is - and isn’t - a bingo machine has roiled the Indian gambling industry for years, with federal regulators proposing definitions that tribes then overwhelmingly reject.

In part because they play more slowly, the machines aren’t nearly as profitable as their Nevada-style counterparts.

Sycuan and other California casinos have used them primarily to deal with overflow crowds on weekends.

Tribes in Riverside and San Bernardino counties quickly replaced the bingo-based machines with the more profitable slots after voters approved new compacts in February. The deals allow them thousands more slots in exchange for payments to the state’s general fund.

Voters also approved a new compact for Sycuan, which would give it the ability to add 3,000 more slot machines and build another casino.

But, unknown to voters, the tribe hadn’t approved that deal.

Schwarzenegger gave the tribe extra time to approve the compact and Sycuan officials are still working on plans to build a casino resort.

Delaying the approval has cost the state more than $30 million it was expecting from Sycuan, the Schwarzenegger administration said last month.

Overview
Background: About 217 gambling machines at the Sycuan casino are based on bingo but can be played with a single touch of a button. Federal gambling regulators classify such machines as Nevada-style slots, but Sycuan says they’re not.

What’s changing: The California Gambling Control Commission is looking at whether that means Sycuan has more slot machines than its compact with the state allows.

The future: The commission could recommend Wednesday that the governor step in to enforce the tribe’s compact with the state.

Onell Soto: (619) 593-4958; onell.soto@uniontrib.com
© Copyright 2008 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.

Posted on September 6th, 2008 by hunwut
Filed under: Gaming, Reservations