Bingo decline may be costing Oregon charities

Bingo raises money for nonprofit groups from churches to youth athletics. But in the past five years, the number of bingo licensees in Oregon has fallen more than 60 percent to 143.

"The state of Oregon certainly does not encourage bingo," said Marc Sellers, an attorney representing bingo operator Kit Freeman, who is fighting a license revocation.

Freeman coordinates activities at Sunset Bingo in Beaverton and manages a game there for Oregon Sports Academy, one of eight independent charitable bingo games that operate under its roof.

Sunset Bingo hosts several games because the Department of Justice limits individual bingo games to 15 hours a week - not enough game time to pay for a large hall with high rent.

Freeman manages only one of the games, but the state has accused her of "collusion" - meddling in the seven other games that operate at Sunset Bingo, perhaps the most profitable bingo facility in the Portland area, raising $800,000 in 1998.

Department of Justice officials declined to provide specific examples of collusion before her hearing, but if Freeman's license is revoked, she could be fined $5,000 and suspended from bingo for five years.

Freeman said she was targeted because she coordinates for the other managers at Sunset Bingo to order supplies, run promotional activities and concession stands, deal with personnel issues, and "make sure all the toilets flush."

"We have eight completely different organizations operating under one roof," Freeman said. "It's a shared facility, and we have to cooperate. The bingo law clearly states that this is allowed."

Her attorney, Sellers, sent a 13-page letter to Attorney General Hardy Myers in December outlining complaints by bingo operators who claim the Charitable Activities Section of the state Department of Justice uses intimidation tactics to regulate games.

The attorney general's office is investigating the allegations, many involving incidents that took place several years ago, but no findings will be released until after Freeman's hearing.

But Greg Hitchcock, executive director of the Oregon Sports Trust, which has donated $2.7 million of bingo money toward amateur athletic projects in the Portland area, said too much power rests in one office.

"The Department of Justice is the regulator as well as the attorney and judge - they lose the ability to be subjective," Hitchcock said. "They tend to be very punitive and say, 'Ha, we caught you. Now we're throwing the book at you.' It's one thing to treat used-car dealers this way, but it's another thing with charities."

Hitchcock, like many in the bingo industry, said a separate commission should be established to regulate bingo, following the guidelines of the Lottery Commission or the Racing Commission.

A governor's task force in 1997 looked at the idea of creating a single commission to oversee all the different gaming operations in Oregon, but decided a supercommission would prove unresponsive and difficult to manage.

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