Phil Williams and Jim OHara, The Tennessean Published 10:00 p.m. CT Oct. 22, 2019 | Updated 10:00 a.m. CT Oct. 23, 2019

A joint federal and state investigation, formally known as Operation Rocky Top, lasted more than three years, and netted nearly 80 people. Ayrika L Whitney, The Tennessean

This story from the Tennessean archives was originally publishedSunday, Dec. 3, 1989, under the headline "BINGO: Anatomy of a news story."

The Senate Judiciary Committee, meeting Tuesday afternoons, often drones on way too long to the dismay of many in the audience.

Bored lobbyists want to begin their evening socializing. Weary reporters want to begin writing their stories for the next edition.

One Tuesday afternoon in April of 1987, a housekeeping bill pushed by bingo interests was being debated.

In the Tennessee General Assembly, housekeeping an otherwise innocent word makes dozing reporters snap awake and sends previously uninterested lobbyists scurrying to give microscopic examination to the bills text.

Since that April day, more than 2 years of investigative reporting has been aimed at answering the question that arose during that committee meeting: Who was trying to do what?

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An initial answer had come quickly. Honest, the bingo lobbyists said, it was just a simple matter. There were these games: pull tabs. Bingo players like them, and all the bingo halls used them. The bill just clarified pull tabs in the law; and, yeah, there was also a matter of making sure that the prize limit for pull tabs was separate from the prize limit for bingo.

Pull tabs? Sounded innocent enough, but then reporters saw them. They were paper slot machines.

Pull back the tabs and if b-i-n-g-o was spelled out, the player won; or if gold bars, diamonds or fruit were displayed, all in a row, the player won.

Shortly after that committee meeting, state Attorney General W.J. Michael Cody issued an opinion that said bingo was probably unconstitutional. More to the point, his research of bingo games expense reports indicated that little money was going to charity.

Bingo lobbyist W.D. "Donnie" Walker looks down from the Senate gallery during debate of a massive charity bingo reform package in 1988. The bill passed 23-8 despite a strong lobbying effort against it.(Photo: Rick Musacchio / The Tennessean)

Reporters and editors at The Tennessean had more questions than answers. We decided it was time to go into the bingo halls.

It was an education. Bingo had been a game we played at birthday parties when we were kids. Gambling halls we had seen in Reno or Las Vegas. There was supposed to be a big difference between bingo games and gambling halls.

But, from cinder-block storefront operations to gaudily-advertised halls, we found big-time gambling being enjoyed by ordinary folks. Every major city in Tennessee and a score of small, rural towns boasted an array of games that would befuddle a Reno blackjack player.

We returned to the newspaper office numbed by Friday and Saturday nights in bingo halls. Grandmothers across the table had helped us mark our nine bingo cards while they kept up with 27 cards. And, oh, the ways to BINGO. Postage stamp. Speed-ball. Hatpin. Large picture frame. Inside picture frame.

The action never stopped. During the breaks from bingo, we felt like pikers as we bought $10 worth of pull tabs, while the fellow at the end of the table bought $50 worth and peeled them back, tossing the losers into a wastebasket with practiced nonchalance.

There were funny times: Sitting at the end of a table near the door and looking up to see the lawyer representing bingo operators walking in (an extended trip to the bathroom seemed to be proper response for us).

Or the time we yelled BINGO! one number too soon.

But most of all, we became disturbed and angry.

Laborious poring over the bingo games financial records proved how very, very little of the proceeds was going to charity.

Even cursory examinations of state records showed outright fraud as professional operators filed bogus documents to take over bingo across Tennessee.

An illiterate Memphis woman, whose church had been taken over by professional bingo gamblers, fled out the back door of her home, convinced that a reporter was a hit man.

Why wasnt this being policed? Why was this sham house of bingo cards and pull tabs standing?

Each story that we wrote brought tips leading to other stories. A lot of the tips seemed unbelievable at first. But we quickly found that they were true. For example:

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Operation Rocky Top: Anatomy of a news story - Tennessean