Guest Column: Legislature should phase out pseudo-slots | Maryland Gazette (HometownGlenBurnie.com)

Mr. Miller doesn't want these machines around to compete with the state-supervised slots that voters will be asked to approve by referendum in November.

But there's a deeper issue: Either the state hasn't clearly defined legal gaming devices or the counties aren't enforcing the laws. So there has been an influx of questionable machines, particularly in Anne Arundel and St. Mary's counties.

The problems started years ago, when Maryland authorized charitable organizations and some commercial operations to sponsor bingo, instant bingo and tip jars.

The machines can't dispense winnings in the form of coins. Instead, a winner receives a ticket he can redeem for prizes - some difference. And the winner is predetermined on a paper roll, so that the odds can't be manipulated.

These fine points convinced the Court of Appeals in 2001 that the machines were legal. Armed with this ruling, gambling barons launched an expansion of the slots-lookalike devices, called Class II games.

Anne Arundel County is one of the few jurisdictions that allow for-profit bingo with electronic devices. There are three operations: Wayson's Bingo in Lothian, Bingo World in Brooklyn Park and Delta Daily Double Bingo in Laurel.

We're against these devices not because they present competition for future slots, but because they are, in essence, slot machines. That's plain to anyone who goes to one of these bingo parlors. Even the manufacturers call them "slot-like." But to make them legal, the devices are dubbed "instant bingo machines." Who's kidding whom here?

We have come a long way from the era in which people plopped tokens onto paper bingo cards on a Sunday afternoon at the local VFW hall. The state and the county should never have allowed any expansion beyond paper-card bingo. Once gambling interests got involved, the results were predictable.

The three county parlors collect $21 million a year, most of which goes to the gaming industry. The rest is distributed by the parlors to charitable causes - a windfall that supporters like to cite when arguing their case in the legislature. The county gets $18,000 annually in licensing fees and $1.6 million in amusement taxes - which may be why County Executive John Leopold, a slots opponent, hasn't protested these devices.

Even if some of the gambling money is put to good uses, it is a mistake to support the proliferation of these devices based on how the homeless or disadvantaged might benefit. The machines should be phased out, and we hope the General Assembly passes the legislation to make this happen.