AUG 2 4 2006 

Heidi McNeil Staudenrnaier, Esq. 

Snell & Wilmer 

One Arizona Center 

Phoenix, AZ 85004-2202 

Re: PlayAway pull tabs, classification opinion 

Dear Ms. Staudenrnaier: 

This is in response to your request for an opinion classifying GameLogic's PlayAway pull tabs 

game. I apologize for the delay in getting back to you and for any inconvenience that this may 

have caused. My staff and I have examined in detail the game description, computer model, 

technical information, and legal arguments you provided. We are also familiar with the 

technical details of GameLogicls PlayAway keno game and its treatment and reception by 

regulators in Connecticut and New Jersey. Based upon all of these things, I conclude that 

PlayAway pull tabs is a Class I1 game played with technologic aids. 

Reduced to its essentials, PlayAway is a simple game. Like traditional pull tabs, PlayAway 

cards are sold by the casino operator from finite sets containing pre-determined numbers of 

winning and losing cards. Also like pull tabs, the patron removes or scratches off a portion of 

the PlayAway card to reveal pre-printed results below. Winning results are highlighted, and 

the patron can determine the value of the card by comparing the results to a paytable printed 

on the back. Winning cards are validated by the operator using pre-printed information under 

the section marked "void if removed." Here, though, the similarity with traditional pull tabs 

ends. 

Unlike ordinary pull tabs, PlayAway cards are designed to be taken home. Each card has on it 

a section marked "Internet access code" that when removed or scratched off reveals a 16-digit 

code. The code enables the patron to check the results of the PlayAway card by entering the 

code at a designated website. 

At the website, the patron may select a button - "Get Results Now" - that will display the 

results of, and the value of, the card. The main purpose of the site, though, is not to display 

what the patron can already do by scratching off a portion the card. Rather, the site dresses 

up the card results in the guise of other games. The patron can elect to "play" any one of ten 

"games" listed on a menu. Some of the games appear to be variations on slot machine or 

NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS 1441 L St. NW, Suite 9100. Washington, DC 20005 Tel: 202.632.7003 Fax: 202.632.7066 WWW.NlGC.GOV 

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spinning-reel games. Others are variations on common casino card games such as blackjack or 

video poker. Still others are variations of home video games and are not standard casino 

games at all. 

In any event, after choosing a game, the patron, to all appearances, plays by spinning reels, 

playing a few hands of cards, etc. The outcome of the game, however, will always be the same 

as the outcome of playing the underlying card. For example, if scratching off the PlayAway 

card would have revealed winning combinations worth $5, then the patron will always appear 

to win $5 on the Internet site no matter which game she chooses and no matter how well or 

how badly she apparently plays it. If she chooses Blackjack, then hitting on 20 will produce 

the same $5 result as standing on 13. Similarly, if the underlying PlayAway card is a losing 

card worth $0, then the result of any game chosen on the internet site will be $0, again no 

matter how well or how badly played. Winning PlayAway cards can only be redeemed at the 

casino where they were purchased. No account is set up for the players and no money is 

transferred over the Internet. 

IGRA divides the world of Indian gaming into three classes. Class I, which is not at issue 

here, encompasses "social games" played "solely for prizes of minimal value or traditional 

forms of Indian gaming engaged in by individuals as a part of, or in connection with, tribal 

ceremonies or celebrations." 25 U.S.C. 3 2703 (6). Class I1 encompasses, in relevant part: "the 

game of chance commonly known as bingo (whether or not electronic, computer, or other 

technologic aids are used in connection therewith) - . . .including (if played in the same 

location) pull tabs, lotto, punchboards, tip jars, instant bingo, and other games similar to 

bingo . . . ." 25 U.S.C. 3 2703 (7) (A) (i) . Class I11 is a catch-all category and includes "all forms 

of gaming that are not Class I gaming or Class I1 gaming." 25 U.S.C. 8 2 703 (8) Class I11 also 

includes any banking card games and any electronic or electromechanical facsimiles of any 

game of chance. 25 U.S.C. 3 2703 (7) (B) (i)-(ii); 25 C.F.R. 3 502.4 (b). 

Classification of the PlayAway game presents three separate questions. First, is PlayAway pull 

tabs or some other similar game? If the latter, PlayAway does not fall within the definition of 

Class I1 and is Class 111. Second, if PlayAway is pull tabs, does it use technologic aids or is it 

an electronic facsimile of the game? If the former, PlayAway is Class 11. If the latter, PlayAway 

is Class 111. Finally, is PlayAway a kind of Internet gambling? If so, it is illegal under the laws 

of the United States, no matter its classification. 

1. Pull tabs 

Neither IGRA nor the Commission's regulations define pull tabs. The game is, however, well 

known. It is a game of chance traditionally played with two-ply paper cards. Cabazon Band of 

Mission Indians v. National Indian Gaming Commission, 14 F. 3d 633,635 (D.C. Cir. 1994). 

Cards are purchased from the operator, which sells them from a set known as the "deal," and 

a typical deal contains up to 100,000 cards. When the the top layer or "tab" of a card is 

removed, the bottom layer reveals symbols in winning or losing patterns. The typical card will 

have three tabs, each an opportunity to win, and a pre-determined number of winning cards 
PlayAway, p. 3 

are randomly spaced within the deal. Seneca-Cayuga Tribe of Oklahoma v. National Indian 

Gaming Commission, 327 F. 3d 1019, 1024 (loth Cir. 2003). 

In traditional pull tabs, bingo hall clerks sell the cards from retail counters or mobile carts. 

Clerks also redeem winning cards for cash prizes. Diamond Games Enterprises Inc. v. Reno, 230 

F. 3d 365,367 (D.C. Cir. 2000). More recently, operators have sold pull tabs from elaborate 

dispensing machines. These are able both to read the results of each card using a barcode 

printed on the card for that purpose and to display those results on video monitors. Some 

dispensers mimic the play of slot machines by displaying spinning reels. Winning cards 

produce "winning" reel combinations, and losing cards produce losing reel combinations. Id. 

at 367-368. 

Given this history and these variations, the PlayAway cards are pull tabs. The PlayAway cards 

are each sold for a fixed price from a deal containing a finite number of pre-designated 

winners and losers. Players reveal hidden combinations of symbols by removing a latex or 

paper cover, and cards with symbols arranged in winning patterns can be redeemed for prizes. 

2. Technologic aids 

The next question, then, is whether the Internet website used to reveal the results of the 

PlayAway cards is a technologic aid to the game of pull tabs or an electronic facsimile of that 

game of chance. In relevant part, the Commission's regulations define a technologic aid as 

equipment that 

(1) assists a player or the playing of a game; [and] 

(2) is not an electronic or electromechanical facsimile.. . . 

25 C.F.R. 9 502.7(a). The website easily satisfies the first requirement. One can easily 

imagine, for example, a visually impaired patron using the "Get Results Now" button on his or 

her home computer in order to see the card results written in larger type than those printed 

on the card itself. 

As to the second requirement, the Commission's regulations defines facsimile, in relevant 

part, as "a game played in an electronic or electromechanical format that replicates a game of 

chance by incorporating all of the characteristics of the game.. .." 25 U.S.C. 8 502.8. The 

concept is well illustrated in Sycuun Band of Mission lndians u. Roache, 54 F.3d 535 (9th Cir. 

1994). 

There, the Ninth Circuit was faced with the question whether the "Autotab model 101 

electronic pull tab dispenser" was a Class I11 facsimile or a Class I1 aid. The Autotab was a 

wholly electronic implementation of pull tabs. Patrons played at video terminals that 

displayed a video representation of a pull tab cards and a video representation of removing 

the tab and revealing the "pre-printed" numbers beneath. There was an electronic deal 

containing a finite number of pull tabs with pre-determined winners and losers, all stored in a 

central computer and passed one at a time to the video terminals for play. 
PlayAway, p. 4 

Ninth Circuit had no difficulty finding that the Autotab was an electronic facsimile: "the pull 

tab machines at issue here are not, in our view, readily distinguishable" from paper pull tabs. 

Id. at 543. The machines in other words, made electronic all of the fundamental 

characteristics of the paper version of the game: 

The game retains the fundamental characteristics of the paper version of pulltabs: the video pull-tab machine is supplied with a computer-chip cartridge 

that insures a predetermined and known number of winning tickets from a 

finite pool of tickets with known prizes; when all tickets have been played, all 

the prizes will have been awarded. 

Id. at 541. 

Similarly, in Cabazon Band, above, the D.C. Circuit found another wholly electronic version 

of pull tabs to be a Class 111 facsimile. That game, like the Autotab, had a computer that 

"randomly selects a card for the gambler, pulls the tab at the gambler's direction, and displays 

the result on the screen. The computer version, like the paper version, has a fixed number of 

winning cards in each deal." Cabazcm Band, 14 F. 3d at 635. This, the D.C. Circuit found, 

exactly replicated paper pull tabs and was thus a Class I11 facsimile. Id. at 636. 

Here, by contrast, the features of pull tabs are not reproduced when a player chooses to view 

the pull tab results from the designated website. Unlike the Autotab or Cabazcm Band game, 

there is no central deal electronically reproduced on a computer system and no electronic 

"pulling" of tabs to reveal symbols. Rather, the results of the pre-printed paper cards are 

simply passed to the website for display, either directly or in the form of the scripted outcome 

of another game, which may or may not even be found in a casino. 

Put slightly differently, the game of pull tabs remains in the paper PlayAway cards and is not 

reproduced in the "games" on the website. This is best illustrated by Diamond Games 

Enterprises v Reno, 230 F. 3d 365 (D.C. Cir. 2000). The machine at issue there was the Lucky 

Tab I1 pull tab dispenser. When activated, the machine cut a paper pull tab from a roll of 

some 7500 cards and dropped it in a tray for the player. As the card was traveling, the 

machine read a barcode on the back of the card and displayed the winning or losing result on 

a video screen using the spinning reels and symbols of a slot machine. Regardless of the 

display, the player still had to redeem winning cards with a clerk. Id. at 367-368. 

The D.C. Circuit specifically rejected the government's argument that the machine was a 

Class I11 facsimile: 

The game is in the paper rolls, not . . . in a computer.. .. For players using the 

Lucky Tab 11, the machine functions as an aid - it "helps or supports," or 

"assists" the paper game of pull-tabs. Without the paper rolls, the machine has 

no gaming function at all. It is, in essence, little more than a high-tech dealer. 

Viewed this way, the game played with the Lucky Tab I1 is not a facsimile of 

paper pull-tabs, it is paper pull-tabs. 
PlayAway, p. 5 

Id. at 370. Accord, Seneca-Cayuga, above, 327 F.3d at 1042-1043 (finding the Magical Irish 

pull tab dispenser, a substantively identical machine, to be Class I1 for these same reasons). 

Revealing the results of the PlayAway pull tabs at the website is no different. The game still 

exists in the tangible paper medium. The patron has the option to play pull tabs on the card 

or through the alternate Internet game. Since the result is identical whichever way the patron 

chooses to play, the Internet "games" are entertaining displays but wholly unnecessary to the 

play of the game, As in Diamond Game, the game is in the tangible pull tab. Accordingly, the 

website used to reveal the results of the PlayAway pull tab cards is not an electronic facsimile. 

The website meets the Commission's definition of "technologic aid." 25 C.F.R. 3 502.7 (a) 

3. Internet gambling 

Finally, because the Internet is used to reveal PlayAway game results and even to make it 

appear as if the patron were playing a gambling game, the question of whether use of the 

Playaway website constitutes Internet gambling naturally arises. Internet gambling, of course, 

is prohibited in the United States under the Wire Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1084. If use of the 

PlayAway website does constitute Internet gambling, then use of the site is impermissible 

regardless of PlayAway's classification. That said, nothing in the use of the Internet - either 

revealing the results of PlayAway pull tabs or "playing" entertaining games to reveal those 

results -- constitutes Internet gambling in any way. 

Simply put, the wager - the gambling - is complete upon the patron's purchase of the 

PlayAway card at the casino. This is easiest to see in the fact that the patron need not reveal 

the card results at all. Rather than scratching off the results or displaying the results through 

the Internet, the patron can redeem the card immediately after its purchase. 

Revealing the pull tab results on the website does not change this, for that activity is not 

gambling. There is no element of chance. The results of the "games" on the website are 

determined by the results of the player's pull tab card, and nothing the player can do can 

change them. A $5 pull tab is worth $5 no matter which Internet "game" the patron selects 

or, if the game is one like Blackjack that involves decisions, how she chooses to play that 

game. No gambling in, in short, is done over the Internet, nor does any money change hands 

that way. The website states clearly that winning tickets must be redeemed at the casino 

where they were purchased. 
PlayAway, p. 6 

Given all of the foregoing, it is my opinion that the PlayAway cards and associated website 

are Class I1 pull tab, provided, of course, that the tabs are sold in the same location as bingo. 

25 U.S.C. 9 2703 (7) (A) (i) (111). If you have any questions or require anything further, please 

contact Michael Gross, Senior Attorney, at 202-632-7003. 

Sincerely, 

4 

Penny J. Coleman 

Acting General Counsel 

cc: Chairman Hogen 

Michael Gross, Senior Attorney 

Steven N. Kane, CEO GameLogic, Inc.