Anchorage, Ak - 19 December, 2005 -

Temperatures dipped below zero in the crowded parking lot outside Tudor Road Bingo, but inside, past the $7 buffet line, past the glassed-in smoking section and the tables littered with bingo papers, in a crowded corner where "Jungle Boogie" hammered from the speakers, Leonard Lampe was hot. Already, Lampe had $50 coming to him from two lucky bets on the Monday night rat race. He slid a chip across a felt-covered table, resting it on 34, his lucky number, and eyed the agent of his destiny: a sable-colored gerbil named Lil' Stubby. Lil' Stubby looked back at him from under a bowl-shaped cage in the center of a huge wheel, ringed with numbered holes. Its black eyes didn't blink, but its whiskers twitched. "I try to think, to feel, where's she going to go," confided Lampe, who was visiting Anchorage from the tiny North Slope village of Nuiqsut. "It's just like Vegas -- go with your instinct, see where she lands." With that, the wheel began to spin. Lampe leaned into the crowd, banging and hollering. Lil' Stubby loosed its bladder, then its bowels, then skittered into hole No. 34, Lampe's magic number. He grinned. He'd go home with $100. When state Rep. Bill Stoltze, a Republican from Chugiak, pushed through a bill in 2004 to clarify state rules for gambling with animals, the scene at Tudor Road Bingo was not what he envisioned. He sponsored the bill to protect a rat race booth at the Alaska State Fair, run to raise money for charity by the Elks, of which he is a member. Tudor Road Bingo just got lucky. "I don't generally favor expansion of gambling," he said. "But I grew up here. I went to my first state fair in the mid-'60s. Rat race is a tradition that nonprofits have come to depend on." The state attorney general's office had discovered "animal classics," like the rat race, were in sketchy legal territory because they weren't specifically provided for in the state's gaming laws, Stoltze explained. He developed a provision that grandfathered in animal gambling operators with permits before 2002. "It was done for the Palmer Elks," he said. "But, when you do grandfathering, it's tough to just grandfather one group." The legislation benefited several other animal classic permit holders, including the Soldotna Veterans of Foreign Wars, which operates a "chicken scat" game where bets are placed on where a chicken relieves itself, and Anchorage Bucs Baseball and Fairbanks Adult Amateur Baseball League, which hold rat race permits and contract with Tudor Road Bingo. The Palmer Elks usually raise about $10,000 to $12,000 a year, giving money to youth sports, Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts. The bingo rat race pulls in about $80,000 a year for its permit holders. Though he didn't lobby for the legislation, Tudor Road Bingo's owner, Jack Powers, wasn't going to let the special permits go unused. "We wanted to do something a little different," said Powers, as he cruised the bingo parlor in a wide brimmed hat that matched his cappuccino-colored suit. "This is just another gambling opportunity." Gerbils run the wheel 60 times a night, seven days a week. On average the game pulls in $2,200 and pays out $1,600 in a day. Powers pays 20 percent of the earnings to the permittees, which is between $60 and $80 nightly. By contrast, bingo, the main event, pulls in $15,000 and pays out $10,000 nightly. Tudor Road Bingo hosts nearly 300 people a night for bingo. Over the year or so it's been operating, the rat race has developed a following of its own, with about 45 to 60 gamblers every evening, Powers said. Lampe said he chose Tudor Road Bingo over other bingo halls specifically for the gerbil gaming. "It makes it more exciting with the rat race," he said. Tudor Road Bingo has run promotions with bagpipers, strippers and politicians in an effort to get new people through the door. Animal gambling, unlike bingo and pull-tabs, can be advertised on television, broadening his promotional options, Powers said. State law exempts "animal classics" from rules that prohibit advertising bingo and pull-tabs. The gerbils, oblivious to promotional considerations, spend most of their days snoozing in three warm tanks, snuggled together in nests of wood shavings. "All the gerbils are female. The boys are lazy. We learned that the hard way," Powers said. "It's not good business when you have a slow gerbil." The gerbils become accustomed to their tank mates. To avoid turf wars, handlers must take care not to place a member of one tank into another tank. When they remove a gerbil from a tank, they mark the tank with a tennis ball as a safety measure. "They'll fight," said Rick Tuttle, director of operations at Tudor Road Bingo, "They've drawn blood before." Nationally, gerbil gambling is on the decline, according to Jackie Vergerio, animals in entertainment specialist with Virginia-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, who monitors the animal gaming industry. The practice is legal in all 50 states, but seems to be falling out of fashion, she said. PETA opposes it, calling it cruel. "We get calls pretty frequently from people going to fairs and carnivals," she said. "These games are terrifying for the animals, with all the noise and bright light." Tuttle disagreed, saying the animals were well cared for. Each was acclimated to the noise slowly before being put on the wheel. They've even seen a vet for worms. After a while, the female gerbils get so used to the wheel, even they don't run, he said. The bingo hall gives "retired" gerbils away as pets. Such will be the future for a white gerbil named Evelyn who took its turn after Lil' Stubby, spinning on the wheel like a professional ballet dancer. It kept its head trained on one spot as its little haunches turned. When its body twisted too far from the direction its head was facing, it took small sideways steps to compensate. Nothing --not hooting, not tapping acrylic nails, not stomping -- could get it to move. Finally, its exasperated handler decided it would be Evelyn's last whirl. "Hold your bets," she said, lifting the tiny animal from the wheel. "Changing gerbil."

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