[ISN] Kentucky lands grant to protect bingo halls from terrorists

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/state/12984493.htm

Oct. 24, 2005
Associated Press

FRANKFORT, Ky. - Kentucky has been awarded a federal Homeland Security
grant aimed at keeping terrorists from using charitable gaming to
raise money.

The state Office of Charitable Gaming won the $36,300 grant and will
use it to provide five investigators with laptop computers and access
to a commercially operated law-enforcement data base, said John
Holiday, enforcement director at the Office of Charitable Gaming.

The idea is to keep terrorists from playing bingo or running a
charitable game to raise large amounts of cash, Holiday said.

But to some, the idea of protecting bingo halls from terrorists is
nonsensical.

"It's almost ludicrous," said Rick Bentley, a Henry Clay High School
sports booster as he volunteered last Thursday at a noisy,
smoke-filled Lexington bingo parlor. "The thought would never even
enter my mind."

Holiday, who applied for the grant, said that terrorists do not
currently profit from charitable gaming in Kentucky to the best of his
knowledge.

"But the potential there, to me, is just huge," he said. "You can earn
a lot of money very fast and deal entirely in cash."

With more than 1,300 organizations licensed to raise money through
gambling, charitable gaming raised $51 million in 2003.

Holiday said if the grant stretches far enough, he also wants to offer
forensics accounting training to his 10 auditors.



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