As an information sheet from Southgate says, "Allocation of Dinner Fee, $2. All other funds are donations to the Social Club."

That doesn't impress Yocom. "Whether people are giving money for food or some kind of donation, they are still giving something of value to be able to gamble. It's still illegal," he said.

Also of interest, several Internet sites list bingo hall locations around the country. One — nationwidebingo.com — however, refuses to list sites in Utah. Its site says, "Bingo games are a form of gambling that is illegal in this state." It then offers to list bingo halls just over the Utah border.

Fixed games?

An additional concern for some is that games at bingo clubs are not regulated and might be dishonest.

For example, Fernandez says when he told a salesman for video bingo that he could not afford the machines, the salesman said, "Don't worry. We can set the machines so they won't give out any big payouts for a few weeks. Then with the money you make in those weeks, you can pay for the machines."

He said he was given some documentation showing that machines could be set to allow few or no big jackpots, and said he provided it to local prosecutors. They, in turn, told the Morning News they are looking at that evidence.

"We want to expose problems with those video machines. If it causes us to close, so be it," Fernandez says. "The only way for us to compete (with clubs that have video machines) would be to have those machines, too, and to cheat people to pay for it — but I don't want to do that. In my heart I know they are illegal."

Yocom notes that people playing electronic, and even traditional, bingo in Utah have no real protection that games are honest.

"At least in Nevada, there is a gaming commission that regulates all the video games. There has to be some sort of minimal payout . Here, they are totally unregulated. . . . They are illegal no matter what they pay out, but some of this could border on fraud. If you hold out an opportunity to win, when people don't really have that chance, it is fraud," he said.

Yocom also says investigators through the years have found evidence of cheating at some traditional bingo games.

"When they were doing their big blackout game, or their game for $1,000, they would have someone who was actually working for the house call out bingo — whether they had it or not — before other people were even near it. We've seen that in some undercover investigations in the past," he says.

Why still operating?

With several prosecutors contending bingo halls offer illegal gambling, why are so many halls still operating?