To run the third class of gambling, the tribe operating land-based casino has to negotiate a compact with the local State Government and, to be fair, many have done this. But some decided that regulation was not for them. To get around the legislation, they devised electronic bingo games that look and feel like slots and video poker machines. If nobody told you, you wouldn’t know you were not playing a Vegas style of machine. All the machines are linked to a central piece of software that plays bingo games among all you players. Whether you win or lose is decided by the virtual ball the software “picks”. Each game ends when a “winning” pattern in the game is achieved. Except that, once you lift the lid, the insides are very different. The headline news is that these machines don’t have a fixed hold percentage. It’s all very ingenious and, using this technology, the manufacturers of the games claim that the payouts are identical to the third class of game. But wait! Everything is good besides: if the class two and three games are identical in the way they play, how come this is not illegal?
Nowadays Indian Tribes casinos are getting a lot more common so it’s worth a word about their video poker machines. In the federal law about indian gambling, the Federal Government classified three types of game: 1. social gambling that’s not for profit; 2. games that don’t rely on a House bank such as bingo and lotto; and 3. the traditional casino style of gambling games including slots and video poker machines.