Opinion ID: 1834644
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Bingo Operators' Position

Text: The operators posit that the chancellor erred because any construction of our constitution requires an examination of the historical setting to determine the precise evil that the constitutional framers sought to prevent or remedy. See Metro Charities' Brief at 24. In essence, the operators believe that the framers did not intend to prohibit bingo when they drafted MISS. CONST. art. IV, § 98 (1890). The operators provide a lesson on the history of lotteries  beginning with the first known lottery authorized by Roman Emperor Augustus Caesar to help raise funds for city repairs, and concluding with lotteries in Mississippi, including the first one (in 1802) which the Territorial Legislature authorized to help raise funds for establishment of Jefferson College. Lotteries in Mississippi were authorized until 1869, when they were constitutionally prohibited. MISS.CONST. art. XII, § 15 (1869) (which preceded MISS.CONST. art. IV, § 98 (1890)). Mississippi's prohibition of lotteries was in sync with the national trend; that is, many states at the time had also banned or cracked down on lotteries. According to the operators, the trend stemmed from a scandal during the 1880s involving the nationally-popular Louisiana lottery. Specifically, the Louisiana scandal resulted in the: (1) dissipation of public trust and confidence in the legitimacy of lotteries, and (2) imposition by state legislatures of statutory or constitutional restrictions of lotteries. This history makes clear that the constitutional framers intended to ban a specific form of gambling known to them as a lottery. Metro Charities' Brief at 29. And [t]his is precisely the historical analysis used by the Maryland Court of Appeals in holding that bingo is not a lottery. Id. (citing Bender v. Arundel Arena, Inc., 248 Md. 181, 236 A.2d 7 (1967)); see also Brief of Bonnie Sanders at 5 (hereinafter Sanders' Brief). Specifically, the court in Bender premised that the constitutional prohibition of lottery grants  considered in light of ... legislative and constitutional history and in the context of the long and by 1867 well recognized distinction in Maryland between gaming and lottery  was intended to mean traditional chartered ticket lotteries. 236 A.2d at 15. The court concluded that the term lottery: (1) should be accorded a more restricted, precise and technical meaning, and (2) should be distinguished from such games of chance as bingo. Id. at 12 & 15. See Greater Loretta Improvement Ass'n v. Florida, 234 So.2d 665 (Fla. 1970) (also holding that its constitutional prohibition of lotteries does not encompass bingo); see Sanders' Brief at 4 (contending that the definition of lottery does not contemplate bingo) (citing D'Alessandro v. State, 114 Fla. 70, 153 So. 95, 96 (1934)). The operators add that this Court has distinguished between common forms of gambling [which] are ... innocuous when in contrast with the widespread pestilence of lotteries. Moore v. State, 48 Miss. 147, 161 (1873) (The former are confined to a few persons and places, but the latter infests the whole community; it enters every dwelling; it reaches every class; it preys upon the hard earnings of the poor, and plunders the ignorant and the simple.) (quoting Phalen v. Virginia, 49 U.S. (8 How.) 163, 168-69, 12 L.Ed. 1030 (1850)); accord Stone v. Mississippi, 101 U.S. 814, 818, 25 L.Ed. 1079 (1879), cited in Metro Charities' Brief at 30. The operators finally cite for support the Mississippi Gaming Control Act  which the legislature passed after the chancellor granted summary judgment. The Act construes § 98 by defining lottery in such a way that one could logically conclude that bingo must not be a lottery: [W]hile not defining the term lottery, Section 98 [of the Mississippi Constitution] clearly contemplates, as indicated by specific language contained therein, that a lottery involves the sale of tickets and a drawing in order to determine the winner... . [I]n carrying out its duties under the Constitution and effectuating the intent of Section 98, the Legislature hereby finds that a lottery, as prohibited by the Constitution, does not include all forms of gambling but means any activity in which: (a) The player or players pay or agree to pay something of value for chances, represented and differentiated by tickets, slips of paper or other physical and tangible documentation upon which numbers, symbols, characters or other distinctive marks used to identify and designate the winner or winners; and (b) The winning chance or chances are to be determined by a drawing or similar selection method based predominantly upon the element of chance or random selection rather than upon the skill or judgment of the player or players; and (c) The holder or holders of the winning chance or chances are to receive a prize or something of valuable consideration; and (d) The activity is conducted or participated in without regard to geographical location, with the player or players not being required to be present upon any particular premises or at any particular location in order to participate or to win. Miss. HB 2, § 2(6)(a)-(d), 1st Extraordinary Sess. (1990) (emphasis added). In sum, the operators contend that this Court should peruse the history of lotteries in order to comprehend the framers' intent when they drafted § 98 and prohibited lotteries. The operators conclude that, clearly, the framers did not intend to prohibit such games as bingo  which did not even exist at the time when § 98 was drafted. See Metro Charities' Brief at 31 (Bingo was not even introduced in this country until 1928[; it] could not have been perceived as the kind of evil that the ... framers were attempting to eliminate.).