Billy Hills and Frank Moran at the St. Mary's Landing Restaurant in Charlotte Hall. 
ST. MARY'S TODAY photo 

Comptroller says he will haul slot machines to the dump!

Corner Casino Owner Discloses


Donations on Eve of Hearings


Scott Boatman, owner of Boatman's Mini-Mart in Oakville, has now decided to disclose how he donates some proceeds of his slot machines at his corner casino to charity.  ST. MARY'S TODAY photo



Vincent Biscoe, owner of Seaside View, says he would like to have slot machines in order to survive rising costs, recession and high taxes.  ST. MARY'S TODAY photo

This slot machine at right never dropped a bingo number slip in the tray in a half hour of play.
 ST. MARY'S TODAY photos

Brass Rail machine failed to drop a 'pull tab ticket' once in a half hour of play

By Kenneth C. Rossignol
ST. MARY’S TODAY
UPDATE
ST. INIGOES (March 5, 2008) --- Going from bar to bar, liquor store to liquor store and restaurant to restaurant, St. Mary’s Deputy First Class Daniel Reppel was one of several deputies who blanketed St. Mary’s County on Monday in an errand of census taking, not of counting sheep, or of cattle, like Sheriffs may have been tasked to do 300 years ago in the Mother County of Maryland, but of slot machines.
Dfc. Reppel’s report will be filed with the Sheriff so he can adequately answer the question, how many slot machines are in St. Mary’s County and where are they.
As the deputy was touring Seaside View Restaurant with a maintenance man; Vincent Biscoe, the owner of the establishment which includes a picnic area, campground and RV Park, located on a scenic wooded vista at Smith Creek, close to Point Lookout, was addressing the same subject with ST. MARY’S TODAY.
“I don’t have any slot machines here,” said Biscoe, “but please tell me how to get them, said the 80-year-plus proprietor, who is one of the county’s few Black business owners. “Business needs all the help it can get these days, taxes are going wild, the price of everything is up, electric, gas, the help all want more money and it’s hard for families to make it. Both husband and wife have to work to make ends meet and when the kids get out of school there is often no one there to meet them and that’s when they get in trouble.”
“People are told to spend their money and maybe they shouldn’t be trying to keep up with the Jones and should slow down on making new commitments,” said Biscoe, “it all takes away from family time, from families being together and talking together, maybe I’m just old fashioned, but that’s the way I see it.”
“Families are having a hard time, it is costing more money all the time, there are foreclosures all over and its hard to make it in business, so if someone can tell me how to get in on this slot machine business, please tell me,” said Biscoe.
Boatman's Corner Casino
Another south-county business owner has a couple of businesses in St. Mary’s County and would like to have more slot machines on top of the nearly two dozen he has in the Boatman’s Mini Mart in Oakville in the northern part of the county.
While St. Mary’s Landing owner Billy Hill was very open last week about how much money he takes in on his nearly 40 slot machines, and the disbursement of the money, Boatman was zealous in guarding that information when asked on Monday, but on Tuesday, after being a little hot under the collar over the previous day's news story, decided to disclose how he donated proceeds to local charities.
Therein lies the problem with the illegal slot machines which have invaded the area since last fall.
Not only are there no controls over the slot parlors, there are no taxes going to the State of Maryland or the counties but how the proceeds are divvied up are solely the discretion of the slot machine operators.
Scott Boatman said on Tuesday in an interview in his Boatman's South in Ridge, that he took in $15,991.71 in his first two weeks of running his slot machine parlor and of that amount he has donated $1,850 to what he calls charities, including that poor little old St. Mary's College which is currently building a Yacht Club on the shore of the St. Mary's River.  Boatman gave the College $620 towards construction of a new amphitheater, $300 to the St. Joseph's recreation center in Oakville, $750 to an unnamed church to pay monthly payments on a bus to take children to church, and $180 to St. Michaels School.  With $11,325.72 in his first reporting period, believed to be a week; $4,665.99 in his second and $8,717.61 in his third period, the little Oakville Casino is showing great potential for being a money maker, maybe not on the scale of St. Mary's Landing but still impressive. His self-described reporting of donations shows a little better than 10 percent going to charity.
Boatman said on Monday that he wouldn't open his records beyond defining how he had given "thousands" to charity. He said his accountant has kept up his books and he will have them ready for the Comptroller and the Sheriff to review, which could take place on Friday.
The Brass Rail
While Frank Moran, one of two purveyors of slot machines to local corner casinos, is emphatic in claiming that his machines are not slot machines but pull tab machines, an examination on Monday evening of the machines in the Brass Rail in Great Mills by ST. MARY’S TODAY, revealed that the machines may indeed be illegal slot machines.
In nearly 30 minutes of play, not once did a pull tab drop from the machine into the tray below. When the machine indicated a win, the money simply was credited to the player’s account, when money bet on the next play of the electronic devise, the money was subtracted.
First, when play was attempted, the player was unsure of which slot to place the bill and asked the next player.
“Put your bill in the slot on the right,” said the older Black gentleman, “you can put in any denomination, it will take all of your money,” he laughed. The man noted that he had not won any money as he had just arrived shortly after dinner time and took up a seat on a stool placed in front of one of 25 machines in that room. Of the nearly 50 machines in the Brass Rail, about half of them had players on this Monday night while no one was playing a Maryland Lottery machine near the front of the bar, which the State Lottery Director told ST. MARY’S TODAY last week is posing a big problem for the state.
The slot machine, still not dispensing any paper slips, ate up a dollar bill, then a five and then a ten. A twenty dollar bill was put in and various bets of from a quarter to a dollar to four dollars were tried with various degrees of success and failure.
Finally, $12.50 of the twenty dollar bill was left and the lighted button proclaiming “Print Ticket” was pressed and out of the slot on the left side of the machine came a slip of paper.
The paper, could have been presented as evidence to a Senate hearing on a bill offered by Sen. Mike Miller and Sen. “Mac” Middleton, but printed on the ticket was the date and the time along with a warning that the cash-out ticket expired in one day.
The hearing was two days away, so in the interest of minimizing the cost of this research, the ticket was presented to the bartender who forked over the cash amount printed on the ticket.
On the top of the ticket were the words “Brass Rail / Little Flower School”.
It has been reported that the Brass Rail gives all the proceeds from its dozens of machines to Little Flower School but Father Joseph Sileo, pastor of Holy Face Church which administers the school says he has been instructed by the Archdiocese to refrain from discussing the amounts taken in from the slot machines.
The spokesman for the Archdiocese has not responded to a request for confirmation of the amounts taken in from the Brass Rail or other bars.
Again, Father Joe was quick to assert that while the church does not condone slot machines, that these machines were instant bingo and he said “we do bingo”. Again, the machine played on Monday evening did not drop any “instant bingo slips” in the tray at the bottom of the machine. The electronic bars, cherries and other winning symbols on the front of the flashing and buzzing machine indicated wins or losses.
While Father Sileo stated last week that he doesn’t have the keys to the machines, he indicated that parish council members might.
St. Mary's Landing Casino
Last week Billy Hill laid out in a straight-forward way, the take on a set of his machines at the St. Mary’s Landing. After deductions for rent for the machines and Frank Moran and Son’s pull tabs, the $23,000 gross ended up providing $3,600 for the designated charity.

On Monday, Scott Boatman was reached by phone and said he believed the lottery wasn’t fair in the payouts to players, that it paid poorly compared to his slot machines and people like the slots much more. Boatman refused to answer direct questions as to how much money he took in, to provide any accounting for this article, in the same way that Billy Hill did last week.
“We have given thousands to St. Joseph’s, to St. Michael’s and to other charities,” said Boatman, “lets just say it’s thousands but I don’t want to get into specific numbers. The Lottery takes in all kinds of money and no one ever knows where it goes, it doesn’t go to these schools down here.”
That Boatman was quick to make it clear that he refused to open his books for public inspection for what he claims are his charitable donations is the crux of the matter involving these machines and why the legislation is pending to outlaw them.
There is no accountability.

(Note: ST. MARY’S TODAY will refer to these slot machines as slot machines and not instant bingo machines, as do the slot machine lobby and casino-bar owners along with reporters for big city media, who ignore the fact that people are playing these machines because they function in every way as slot machines and never once has a machine blurted out the word “Bingo” when there is a winner.)