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The National Indian Gaming Commission 

Page 2 

August 26, 2013 

One touch bingo, as it is described in your notice and as best we understand 

it, is just such a clever perversion of common bingo. It is by all appearances a 

machine that both generates and plays a complete bingo game (assuming that is 

truly what it does) once it is activated by a single press of a button. Thereafter, all 

stages of the game undeniably occur inside the machine: 

1) The machine creates a card or cards bearing numbers. 

2) The machine draws the numbers. 

3) The machine covers the numbers on the cards. 

4) Even if there is more than one live player, the machine plays the game for 

every player. 

5) The machine decides when the game is over and a player has won. 

6) The machine awards the prize to a winner and informs other players they 

have lost. 

The absence of any non-electronic bingo play is dispositive. IGRA expressly 

excludes from the definition of class II gaming “electronic or electromechanical 

facsimiles of any game of chance . . .”. 25 U.S.C. § 2703(7)(B)(ii) (emphasis added). 

Bingo would undoubtedly be included in “any” game of chance; a “facsimile” is a 

copy of the real thing. Since all aspects of one touch bingo after the button push are 

electronic — i.e., virtual — events, it is nothing more than an electronic facsimile of 

a game of chance. It therefore cannot satisfy the definition of class II gaming. 

While IGRA does permit electronic “aids” for the play of bingo, one touch 

bingo is not such an aid. The NIGC’s notice suggests that a machine is an aid as 

long as it allows more than one player, but there is nothing in IGRA that supports 

this notion, nor does it make any sense. Bingo is commonly played as a social game 

in a “parlor” or a “hall” where players interact with each other and with the game 

operators. A bingo aid might increase the effective size of the room by allowing 

more participants to be linked to the game from other bingo halls, S. Rep. No. 446, 

100th Cong., 2d. Sess. 9 (1988). The mere existence of more than one player 

however, does not itself transform a facsimile into an aid. Michigan strongly 

disagrees with the statement in your notice that there is an “exception” to the 

prohibition on electronic facsimiles of games of chance for such facsimiles merely 

because they may “broaden” player participation. IGRA allows technologic aids to 

the play of a real bingo game; it in no uncertain terms prohibits facsimiles of bingo, 

whether or not they may broaden player participation by allowing more than one 

player. There is no exception to this prohibition. 

And while your notice states that one touch bingo participants compete with 

other players, no evidence of this was identified in the notice, nor was it presented 

to the court in a recent case where electronic bingo was challenged by the State of 

Alabama. Barber v. Cornerstone Cmty. Outreach, Inc., 42 So. 3d 65, 87 (Ala. 2009) 
The National Indian Gaming Commission 

Page 3 

August 26, 2013 

(“There is no evidence indicating that this ‘linkage’ of individual machines to the 

server means that the players of the different electronic machines are playing 

against one another.”) It seems unlikely that real competition is even possible. If, 

in fact, electronic “bingo” games can be played every six seconds (“an entire ‘bingo 

game’ takes approximately six seconds . . .”, id. at 87), how could players 

realistically play each other? There is no information in your notice that gives even 

a suggestion that there is a game operator who gathers players and starts a new 

game. The distinct impression is that individual players push a button on a one 

touch machine whenever they have credits available, regardless of whether anyone 

else is playing in that particular “game” of bingo. Michigan has attempted to obtain 

a copy of the software for one touch bingo (including requesting it from the NIGC) 

for purposes of conducting a technical analysis to inform these comments, but it has 

been unable to acquire such a copy. Based on the information available to us, 

however, we believe that no person walking into a room where one touch bingo is 

being conducted would be able to discern that what is being played is the game 

“commonly known as bingo.” One touch bingo looks and plays like a slot machine. 

Even if an analysis of the software established that there is some nominal 

competition, this is still a game played entirely by a machine, which, as detailed 

above, creates and plays the “bingo” game from start to finish for any and every 

participant without exception. It is no different than if the machine created 

“virtual” competitors since whatever playing occurs is conducted solely by the 

machine. And if the court in Barber is correct that the losers don’t even learn who 

won the game – suggesting that players aren’t aware of other player’s participation 

– what does it matter that there is competition if it is really against the machine 

that is playing the game? In a directly analogous situation involving an electronic 

facsimile of a paper pull tab game, the D.C. Circuit held that the electronic version 

of pull tabs was a facsimile and hence a class III game, even though the machine 

permitted competition among other players. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians v. 

National Indian Gaming Comm'n, 14 F.3d 633, 637 (D.C. Cir. 1994). There is no 

basis for distinguishing the pull tab machine in Cabazon from one touch bingo, 

except perhaps that the competition element in the Cabazon case was more readily 

apparent than it is here. 

Michigan also believes that electronic bingo is specifically designed to play 

just like a class III slot machine. The Barber Court confirmed this. “From the 

officer's testimony, it seems the machines operate almost exactly like slot 

machines.” Barber, 42 So. 3d at 86. Congress expressly excluded slot machines 

from the definition of class II gaming. 25 U.S.C. § 2703(7)(B)(ii). Your notice 

suggests a willingness to read the three bingo rules stated in the class II gaming 

definition broadly to find that one touch is bingo, but it expends little effort to 

determine whether one touch bingo is a prohibited slot machine. This is a 

necessary step to declaring any machine class II gaming. If the same generous 
The National Indian Gaming Commission 

Page 4 

August 26, 2013 

interpretation were applied to the question of whether one touch was a prohibited 

slot machine, based on all the evidence, it would be difficult to conclude that one 

touch is anything but a class III game. As Alabama points out in its comments, 

these games are promoted to casinos precisely because they look and play just like 

slot machines. The only purpose for perverting the game commonly known as bingo 

so it can be played in six seconds is not to attract traditional bingo players, but 

rather to attract players who want to play slots. Even without a liberal 

interpretation, it is clear that Congress intended that machines like one touch bingo 

would be considered class III gaming. 

This conclusion is even clearer considering that Congress intended to apply 

the exclusion to slot machines “of any kind.” Id. “Any kind” is a very broad 

category. This would surely include a machine that looked and played like a slot 

machine, whether or not the internal system that creates the player’s experience is 

based on bingo or some other logic. The determination that it is class II gaming 

where gamblers can play a full game of one touch bingo in the amount of time it 

takes to pull the lever or press a button on a slot machine is an obvious attempt to 

circumvent the broad IGRA exclusion. IGRA excludes any kind of slot machine 

from class II gaming and did so with a full understanding that slot machine 

technology would evolve beyond simple mechanical devices with spinning wheels. 

Otherwise, it would not have used the all-encompassing terms “any game of chance” 

and “slot machine of any kind.” 

And one touch bingo contains all of the characteristics of a slot machine. It 

should make no difference whether those attributes are conducted on a stand-alone 

machine or a server. Server based slots were approved by the Nevada Gaming 

Commission in April of 2007 and are the new wave of Class III gaming.2 Moreover, 

many states, like Michigan, broadly define slot machine gaming in their compacts, 

penal codes, and commercial gaming laws.3 An Idaho court defined slot gaming as 

gambling devices “which, upon payment by a player of required consideration in any 

 

2 http://casinogambling.about.com/od/slots/a/server.htm; 

http://www.asgam.com/features/item/1716-the-server-based-revolution.html. 

3 “ ‘[S]lot machine’ means a mechanical device, an essential part of which is a drum 

or reel which bears an insignia and which when operated may deliver, as a result of 

the application of an element of chance, a token or money or property, or by 

operation of which a person may become entitled to receive, as a result of the 

application of an element of chance, a token or money or property.” MCL 

750.303(3). “ ‘Slot machine’ means a type of electronic gaming device.” Mich. 

Admin. Code. R. 432.1107(b). “ ‘Electronic gaming device’ means an 

electromechanical device, or electrical device or machine which, upon payment of 

consideration, is available to play or operate as a gambling game.” Mich. Admin. 

Code. R. 432.1102(j). 
The National Indian Gaming Commission 

Page 5 

August 26, 2013 

form, may be played or operated, and which, upon being played or operated, may, 

solely by chance, deliver or entitle the player to receive something of value, with the 

outcome being shown by spinning reels or by a video or other representation of 

reels.” MDS Investments, L.L.C. v. State, 65 P.3d 197, 203 (Idaho 2003). These 

definitions encompass class III slot type gaming and one touch easily fits within 

their meaning. It follows that defining one touch bingo as class II gaming blurs the 

distinction between class II and III gaming. In fact, a 180 degree reversal of NIGC’s 

interpretation here does nothing but create more ambiguity and a very slippery 

slope that will likely result in a multitude of lawsuits and disputes across the 

nation. Allowing one touch bingo machines to be played as class II gaming based on 

a hyper-technical interpretation of IGRA is nothing less than an end run around 

Congress’s express requirement that slot machines not be included in the definition 

of class II gaming. 

For these and the additional reasons detailed in Alabama’s comments to you, 

Michigan objects to the proposed reinterpretation of NIGC’s 2008 decision that 

correctly held that one touch bingo is not class II gaming. 

Please feel free to contact me or Assistant Attorney General Louis 

Reinwasser at 517-373-7540 if you have any questions. 

Sincerely, 

Bill Schuette 

Attorney General