The newly renamed San Pablo Lytton Casino turned on 500 electronic bingo machines Monday morning, thus becoming the Bay Area's first urban casino.
The first-morning crowd consisted overwhelmingly of local people who had read about the opening in the news or heard it by word of mouth. A brigade of casino employees stood by to instruct the novices on how to use the machines, which visually resemble Nevada-style slot machines but differ in some essential aspects, notably legal status.
As a form of bingo, the electronic version requires a player to push a "daub" button -- a maximum three daubs per play. But you do not have to understand the first thing about bingo to play, said Ted Gail of Reno-based International Game Technology, which manufactures the machines. Many people simply want to "watch the lines" and enjoy "the entertaining display," he said.
At eye level, a player sitting at the machine looks at a screen with rows of symbols similar to Nevada slots. A certain number of symbols in a row wins, just like in Nevada. However, "the bingo payments are completely determined by the bingo computer," Gail said. "It works just like rolling balls."
A second screen, above the line screen, displays bingo cards.
"You can play either way," Gail said.
As Class II gaming devices, the bingo machines do not require state approval on Indian reservations, unlike Nevada slots, which are Class III under federal law. When the Legislature balked at ratifying a compact between the Lytton Band of Pomo Indians and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for 2,500 Nevada slots, the tribe opted to go the Class II route on its 91/2-acre San Pablo reservation.
Monday's low-key San Pablo debut shortly before 9 a.m., coming after more than a year of intense political wrangling, was almost anticlimactic, said Doug Elmets, a spokesman for the casino and the tribe. The casino's north room offers card games, but some of it could be converted for more bingo machines if there is demand, he said.
Opponents, meanwhile, hope to make casino gambling a temporary Bay Area phenomenon.
A bill sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that would undo special 2000 legislation that put the San Pablo tract on the fast track to reservation status recently passed a Senate committee. The tribe has vowed to sue if Feinstein's bill becomes law. San Pablo, which hopes to collect $6.9 million from the casino this year, would likely support a suit, City Manager Brock Arner has said.
The fight to open the San Pablo casino pales compared with 200 years of challenges, said Lytton tribal chairwoman Margie Mejia, speaking of the United States' treatment of American Indians in general. Mejia, who is also the casino's CEO, performed what little ceremony there was Monday by taking out the first "Players Advantage" card, serial number 0000001. Elmets likened the card, which accumulates points for playing, to an airline frequent flier card.
Later Monday, sisters Paula Ortiz and Veronica Rodriguez of Berkeley, frequent travelers to the Cache Creek and other casinos, tried out some machines.
"I like the lights; I like the pictures; they're very pretty," said Ortiz, who was playing a 5-cent machine and said she was running a few dollars ahead. Ortiz said the new machines, with names such as Leopard Spots, Texas Tea, Catch Wave, Monster Mansion and Risqué Business, are visually more appealing than the slots at other casinos.
Rodriguez said the proximity of the casino to Berkeley meant she would not have to enlist her children to drive her out of town to gamble.
"This is so close," she said. "I don't have to bother them. I can take the bus."
Nearby, Sixto Alvarez of Richmond, nursing the $59.50 balance of an initial $100 investment that had at one time grown to $111, also found the machines to his liking, even though he was not sure how they related to bingo.
"It's not a lot different" from the slot machines at other Indian casinos, Alvarez said. "You have to push more often; otherwise it's the same."
Most of the machines come in denominations of 5 cents to $5 per line. The maximum bet on a $5 machine was $15. There was also a 1-cent machine, the Unicorn.
The base Bingo Grand Prize -- a class II form of jackpot -- was $50,000 on Monday.
A reporter's $1 investment in a 5-cent machine titled Hexmaster lasted about 25 minutes, briefly rising to $2.50 in 5-cent credits.
Also on Monday, Contra Costa County officials unveiled a study that warns a casino in San Pablo will create thousands of new compulsive gamblers and snarl traffic, thus hampering the delivery of emergency services. Arner blasted the timing of the study as well as its premise of a 2,500-slot machine casino.
But county Supervisor John Gioia defended the study.
"We still believe that they have not ended their quest for 2,500 Nevada-style slots."
Elmets said Monday that the tribe is focusing exclusively on Class II gaming for the foreseeable future.
