Bingo players at the Lions Bingo Hall on Airline Drive sat at long folding tables Wednesday afternoon and played bingo the way it's been played for years. They listened for numbers and carefully daubed their bingo cards with colored ink.

But another group of players sat at a bank of electronic machines that look like slot machines, intently focused on pushing the button to make the reels spin. One woman fed a $20 bill into her machine as bells and flashing lights enticed her to keep pushing the button to spin the reels.

They may sound like slot machines, but they aren't, said Fred Bologna, general manager of Lions Enterprises, a group of five Lions Clubs that own the bingo hall. They're a new generation of electronic bingo machines.

"It's video bingo. Here are the balls, and the card," Bologna explained, pointing to the small electronic representations of numbered balls and a bingo card on the screens.

The three spinning reels at the center of the display, he said, are "just incidental."

These machines have been rapidly changing the landscape of the state's 63 charitable bingo halls ever since they were found to be legitimate bingo machines by an administrative law ruling in February.

Today, there are 312 active bingo machines in the state; 176 of them are the new generation slot look-alikes. The new machines became commercially available in Louisiana in the spring.

To be sure, the number of bingo machines is tiny compared with the number of video poker and slot machines in operation across Louisiana, but their rapid growth could pose challenges for the state.

In theory, if electronic bingo machines were to grow in popularity, bingo halls, which are allowed to have up to 35 machines, could take business away from the riverboat casinos and video poker parlors that generate tax revenue for the state.

Rep. Danny Martiny, R-Kenner, chairman of the House Committee on the Administration of Criminal Justice, which handles gambling issues, will hold a hearing on the matter today at 10 a.m.

"It's virtually the same thing as saying bingo halls can have slot machines, only not pay any taxes," Martiny said. "My concern is you're going to have bingo halls sprouting up out of nowhere."

The new machines could open an avenue for American Indian groups that fail to negotiate a compact with the state for casinos with slot machines.

Martiny said he expects to file bills about electronic bingo machines in the next legislative session. "We need to make sure that they're regulated," he said.

Bingo halls are regulated through the Office of Charitable Gaming at the Department of Revenue, not through the casino-regulating Louisiana Gaming Control Board. Bingo halls have lighter standards for oversight and background checks.

Any group that is registered as a nonprofit with the Internal Revenue Service is eligible to be licensed as a bingo operator. While the Office of Charitable Gaming does conduct criminal background checks on anyone who operates a bingo hall, Michael Legendre, director of the charitable gaming office, conceded that those checks may not be as stringent as background checks required of groups regulated by the gaming board.

And while casinos pay hefty taxes on their gambling revenue, bingo hall operators pay a fee of $600 a year on new-generation bingo machines, plus 3 percent to 5 percent in taxes on bingo supplies and products.

In addition, while no one younger than 21 is allowed in casinos, the rules are different with bingo halls. Although patrons must be older than 18 to play the electronic bingo machines, bingo halls have long been promoted as a venue for family entertainment, Legendre said.

Martiny says he believes the ruling that deemed these machines as bingo machines was correct, and said he has no issues with the oversight of the Office of Charitable Gaming. But he said he wants to make sure that the oversight of bingo halls and fees to operate these new machines are appropriate for the new technology.

Electronic bingo machines, the first electronic gambling machines licensed in Louisiana, came on the scene in the late 1980s. Before video poker machines appeared in 1992, there were about 500 bingo machines in operation in the state, but the number of these machines dwindled, like the bingo business in general, with the advent of casino gambling. That took away a key source of revenue for many civic groups, nonprofit organizations and Carnival krewes.

Late last year, the charitable gaming office denied an application from the Austin, Texas, company Multimedia Games Inc. to license its electronic bingo game called "Meltdown Louisiana Lagniappe Bingo" in Louisiana, because the device looked too much like a slot machine and might cause confusion among players.

Multimedia Games appealed, and in February, Division of Administrative Law Judge Cynthia Eyre reversed the decision, saying that the Meltdown game meets the state's definition of a bingo machine because the slots have nothing to do with the payout of the machine.

When a customer puts money into the machine and pushes "Play," a computer randomly chooses bingo balls, which electronically fall onto the screen. The machine automatically marks corresponding numbers on an electronic bingo card, and if a player gets a "bingo," that win is represented by the slot reels aligning to show three of the same symbols. It all happens quickly, not at all like the leisurely pace of traditional bingo.

Legendre said that since the ruling, his office has gotten inquiries from several other electronic bingo manufacturers about applying to license new games in Louisiana, but so far none has submitted applications.

In the New Orleans area, Meltdown is available at the Azalea Hall in Marrero, Ted's Place in Chalmette and the Elmwood Room in Jefferson, as well as the Lions Bingo Hall.

Multimedia Games declined to talk about its business in Louisiana and said that its customers prefer to keep a low profile.

"We would not discuss what has transpired for competitive reasons," said Howard Chalmers, a spokesman for the publicly held company. "Our customers have requested that we not speak for them."

While the charitable gaming office says the games are so new that it hasn't received its first batch of quarterly reports that would show whether the volume of business at bingo halls has increased, Bologna said he has seen an increase in business since the Lions Bingo Hall installed the new machines. "These are more attractive to the public," he said.

These new-generation bingo machines also have proven effective in attracting new patrons at Indian casinos in Oklahoma, which have been successful at drawing customers from Dallas who used to drive to Shreveport to gamble.

Julie Wilkerson, tribal attorney for the Jena Band of Choctaw Indians, said American Indian groups can open bingo parlors on tribal land without a compact from the state. The Choctaws are trying to get property approved as tribal land, and Wilkerson said that if her client isn't successful at negotiating a compact in Louisiana for a full-blown casino with table games and slot machines, it would open a casino with slot look-alike machines like Meltdown.

"It's very difficult to tell the difference," she said.

Video poker lobbyist Alton Ashy said it's too early to tell whether these new-generation machines will affect his clients. He said he thinks regulation of bingo halls needs to be strengthened and brought in line with casinos, because if there were ever a scandal at a bingo hall, the public wouldn't differentiate between the types of gambling. "We're not going to stand in the way of the local Lions Club making money, but it all needs to be regulated and regulated properly," Ashy said.