Texas Attorney General Opinion: GA-0591 Page: 3 of 7
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The Honorable Jane Nelson - Page 3
Amendment No. 24).5 Computer hardware or software known as a site controller would store and
distribute electronic pull-tab bingo tickets for display on electronic monitoring terminals or card-
minding devices.6 See id. at 1808-09. The site controller could create, shuffle, store, and configure
electronic pull-tab bingo tickets, distribute such tickets to terminals or card-minding devices, account
for electronic credits purchased, played, or won by playing such bingo games, play electronic bingo
games, and perform other functions. See id. at 1809. A bingo player could use a plastic, magnetic
stripe, paper, or smart card' to enable or track the play of bingo games, to record electronic credits
purchased, played, or won and to redeem credits purchased, played or won through a cashier or
redemption system. See id at 1807-10. The player could also use a card-minding device or an
electronic monitoring terminal to purchase, play, and learn the outcome of electronic bingo games.
See id. The card-minding device could be used "to display graphics and animation that correspond
to or represent, in an entertaining manner, the outcome of an approved electronic pull-tab bingo
ticket or game," while an electronic monitoring terminal could create graphics and animation "to
correspond to, display, or represent, in an entertaining manner, the outcome of an approved
electronic pull-tab bingo ticket or electronic bingo cards." Id. 1809-10 (proposing amendments to
sections 2001.409(a)(5) and 2001.4092(b) of the Occupations Code).
Senate Floor Amendment No. 24 would have allowed pull-tab bingo games to be
computerized in their entirety, from the choice of winning numbers to a player's redemption of his
winnings. The player would have very little to do, aside from occasionally touching a computer
screen or swiping his card at a terminal. Such games would be a kind of gambling far different from
the social bingo contemplated by the Legislature and voters who approved the bingo amendment.
See Tex. Att'y Gen. Op. No. GA-0541 (2007) at 5. Although games proposed by Senate Floor
Amendment No. 24 might have been called "bingo," they resembled video slot machines or other
illegal gambling devices. See TEX. PENAL CODE ANN. 47.01(4) (Vernon 2003) (defining
"gambling device"); State v. Fry, 867 S.W.2d 398, 402 (Tex. App.-Houston [14th Dist.] 1993, no.
writ) (video slot machine is a gambling device); see also I. Nelson Rose, Is It Bingo, or A Slot
Machine? 7 Gaming Law Rev. 99 (2003). Attorney General Opinion GA-0541 concluded that a
"Texas court would find that 'bingo' within article III, section 47(b) does not include 'electronic
pull-tab bingo' as described by Senate Floor Amendment No. 24 to House Bill 3 of the Seventy-ninth
Regular Legislative Session," and that article III, section 47(b) of the Texas Constitution would not
except the electronic pull-tab bingo game from the prohibition against lotteries in section 47(a). The
opinion accordingly concluded that electronic pull-tab bingo would be unconstitutional under article
III, section 47(a). Tex. Att'y Gen. Op. No. GA-0541 (2007) at 6.
SSee id.
6A "[c]ard-minding device" is defined by Commission rule as "[a]ny mechanical, electronic, electromechanical
or computerized device, and including related hardware and software, that is interfaced with or connected to equipment
used to conduct a game ofbingo and which allows a player to store, display, and mark a bingo card face five spaces wide
by five spaces long, the center space free, and the other spaces containing pre-printed numbers between 1 and 75,
inclusive." 16 TEX. ADMIN. CODE 402.100(5) (2007) (Definitions), renumbered at 32 Tex. Reg. 6148, 6149 (to be
codified at 16 TEX. ADMIN. CODE 402.100(6)).
7A smart card looks like a credit card, but contains an embedded microprocessor that can be read by a computer.
"What is a "smart card"? howstuffworks, available at http://computer.howstuffworks.com/question332.htm (last visited
Jan. 7, 2008).(GA-0591)
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Texas. Attorney-General's Office. Texas Attorney General Opinion: GA-0591, text, January 17, 2008; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth275487/m1/3/?q=%222008~%22: accessed August 15, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.