Originally published November 29 2005
Homeland Security works to keep terrorists out of charitable gaming industry
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Kentucky's Office of Charitable Gaming received a $36,300 grant from Homeland Security to prevent terrorists from raising funds with bingo games.
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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