Once a good bet, bingo proves unreliable provider for Prairie Public Broadcasting Originally published in Current, June 20, 1994 Bingo and other charitable gaming operations have been good to Prairie Public Television, providing as much as a quarter of its revenues and making it the biggest gambling operator in North Dakota. But other players are crowding in to take a share of the state's relatively straight-laced charities-only gambling market. Indian reservations with slots and blackjack parlors — like the Standing Rock reservation, south of Bismarck — are luring away players. And the state has cashed in on the vice by more-than-doubling its excise tax on gaming. As of July 1993, the tax went from 2 to 4.5 percent, says Prairie's controller, Mark Lande. Before the tax hike, the network already was paying $2.9 million in gaming-related taxes. Attendance at Prairie's big bingo parlors is "down significantly'' because of the competition, and that has combined with the tax increase to reduce net gaming revenues by 40 to 60 percent, he says. Already, the nonprofit has cut $300,000 from network spending. The network also closed its bingo hall in Dickinson and its blackjack parlor at a Holiday Inn in Fargo, leaving three sites in operation around the state. [Gaming proceeds continued to fall in 1994, according to later reports, and Prairie Public Broadcasting eliminated 53 full and part-time positions on its staff.]

Prairie's big gambling parlor in Fargo, now closed. Earlier story Gambling a sure thing for Prairie Public Television Originally published in Current, Aug. 26, 1991 By Steve Behrens Just off the Interstate in Fargo, N.D., Prairie Public Television's big neon sign towers over the Hardee's restaurant on one side and the used car lots on the other. The big red letters light up, one at a time and then all together: "B ... I ... N ... G ... O ... BINGO.'' As the sign above the door reveals, this big, no-frills building is "Prairie Public Bingo.'' Along with other bingo, blackjack, off-track and "pull-tab'' operations across North Dakota, this is the source of about a quarter of Prairie PTV's income this year. The incongruous sideline--by far the largest gaming operation in the state, with gross sales of about $35 million--gives a small community nonprofit broadcaster in Fargo, on the eastern margin of the state, the wherewithal to operate five additional transmitters, including four in the sparsely populated middle and west of the state. "We simply wouldn't be functioning as a state network if we didn't have that income,'' says Dennis Falk, president of Prairie. Cheaper than bar-hopping Inside the supermarket-like building on a summer evening, 220 players--half the New Year's Eve turnout--are bowed intently over a dozen or more bingo squares apiece. "O-71,'' announces a young official on a raised platform. Cigarette aloft in her free hand, a player darts her felt-tipped marker across her bingo cards. "O-68,'' says the announcer. Somebody yelps. "Bingo on O-68,'' says the announcer. "For me, it's really relaxing,'' says Bobbie Everson, who drives in 50 miles from Ada, Minn., a couple of times a month. "You make a lot of new friends,'' adds her pal Hazel Balzum, also from Ada. "It's cheaper than going to a bar, where you know you'll just get a headache,'' says a man leaving the bingo hall with his wife and teenage daughter. "Here, you might win.'' The couple plays occasionally and spends $50 or $60 each time. Once they won $2,500. The comparison to bar-hopping appeals to Steve Leyland, director of business affairs at Prairie PTV. "With bingo, you don't get picked up DWI on the way home,'' he suggests. "It's something you can do with younger people, 18 or 19. It's kind of a family-outing thing.'' The players also accentuate the positive. "In the last two weeks, I've won $700 and spent $50,'' says regular player Linda Wallace. Over the long term, she says, "I would say I'm squared with bingo.'' "If you want to win money,'' says a young woman named Kelleen Goodwin, "this is the place to come. I always leave here with my money back.'' She admits not winning for the last four or five nights, however. Indeed, some players can break even or have occasional winning streaks because Prairie returns about 80 percent of its gaming revenues to winning players, according to Prairie's second-quarter gaming report. "We had one individual in the Fargo market a couple years ago,'' Leyland recalls, "who won five prizes in excess of $2,000 in a one-month period.'' The possibility of big wins, and the likelihood of smaller ones, keeps customers buying bingo cards. In an evening, the average customer spends $30 to $35 playing bingo, plus another $20 to $25 buying pull-tabs, according to Leyland. Is this entirely victimless amusement? Some can't stop "The big question is how many of those people can afford to spend the money they're spending,'' says Robert Haseltine, a Fargo social worker who's president of the Council on Compulsive and Problem Gambling of North Dakota. He has counseled a dozen gamblers--and heard from relatives of many others--whose gambling had hurt them and their families. "I'm seeing people who cannot stop,'' says Lisa Vig, a counselor with Lutheran Social Services in Fargo. "Their credit cards are maxed-out, they've got legal troubles, they're mortgaging their homes, to the point where a couple in their 60s cannot plan for retirement anymore--they've lost all their savings.'' "Our attitude,'' says Leyland, "is that it's basically no different than retailing, with people who spend too much and get into credit problems.'' But he has joined the compulsive-gambling council to provide help for problem gamblers. Gambling for its own sake has not been a popular idea in North Dakota, a state that legalized Sunday retailing only last year. But in 1976 the state's voters were won over by the idea of gambling that would support charities and keep taxes down. "It gets the legislature out of having to fund these social service agencies,'' says Dan Rylance, an editor at the Grand Forks Herald. It also assists public TV, which the state gives only minor aid. Reacting to an unpopular crackdown on illegal church bingo, the voters approved a constitutional amendment permitting nonprofits to run gambling operations, except for lotteries. State rules initially limited charitable gaming to clubhouses, but were loosened, permitting blackjack and public gaming sites. Until 1981, Prairie PTV had stayed away from gaming, says Falk, but reconsidered when public broadcasting's federal funding came under attack. To start up, Prairie hired a veteran of earlier charitable gaming in the state to establish blackjack parlors, and later hired Las Vegas dealers to run blackjack tables. Opening soon in Minot Blackjack operations remain, but bingo revenues now return twice as much money. Prairie has big bingo operations in Grand Forks and Bismarck as well as its home town of Fargo, a smaller parlor in Dickinson, and plans to open shop in Minot later this year. Gamblers can also place bets on horse races around the country through Prairie's off-track windows at the bars, or buy "pull-tab'' chances out of big glass jars in the bingo and blackjack locations. This year [fiscal 1991], Prairie PTV's net income from charitable gaming — after prizes, expenses and taxes — will hit "somewhere in the neighborhood'' of 25 percent of the network's $6 million budget, says Leyland. He expects this year's net to rise to $1.7 million — up from $1.2 million in fiscal 1990 and $950,000 in fiscal 1989. But more money will go to the state government this year--$2.4 million in various taxes, according to Leyland. And far more will be returned in prizes to winning players--somewhere above $25 million. Statewide operations give Prairie larger gaming revenues than several of the next largest charitable gaming operators combined, according to Falk. Major competing operators in Fargo include the North Dakota Association for the Disabled and the Plains Art Museum. To keep the bingo and blackjack dollars coming, Prairie has aligned with other nonprofits in fighting off proposed lotteries and would-be commercial operators who want part of the action, and in lobbying against the heavy state taxation of gaming. The state's voters seem to be pleased with the compromise they've struck: gambling that gives profits only to nonprofits. In 1982 they defeated an initiative to stop gambling, according to Leyland, and last year they rejected a proposal to let commercial casinos open up — both by a margin of two to one. Also pleased with the deal are the players hurriedly scanning their bingo cards under the bright bluish lights of Prairie Public Bingo. The only critic in sight is a white-haired gent waiting outside for his wife to finish up. "I've got better ways of spending money,'' he says, staring out the windshield of his car. "The women are more gullible than the men.'' But doesn't she win occasionally? "If she played for 20 years, every night, she'd still be in the hole.''

 

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