A 1975 amendment to the Liquor Licensing Act made bingo legal in Bermuda, Magistrates' Court was told yesterday.

The argument was made by lawyer Mr. Richard Hector, as the trial of businessman Neil Inchcup and DeFontes Broadcasting Co. Ltd. on charges of conducting an illegal lottery neared completion.

The trial, which is expected to wrap up before Senior Magistrate the Wor. Will Francis today, relates to Freeport Home Bingo games staged at Dockyard on October 18, 1994 and broadcast on VSB Television on October 22.

Inchcup, 59, of Smith's Parish, and VSB operator DeFontes are charged under the Lotteries Act 1944. Much of the trial in April centred around whether bingo is purely a game of chance, and is thereby illegal.

But yesterday Inchcup's lawyer, Mr. Hector, introduced a new element. He cited a 1976 Magistrates' Court case involving bingo in which Forty Thieves Club president Terrence Brannon was found not guilty of operating an illegal lottery.

Unlike the Dockyard site where the VSB game was played, the Forty Thieves was a licensed premises under the Liquor Licensing Act 1974.

In his 1976 judgment, Magistrate the Wor. K.C. Nadarajah noted that the Liquor Licensing Act had been amended in 1975 to exclude bingo from the definition of an illegal game.

Although the night club was charged under the Lotteries Act, Mr. Nadarajah ruled that the amendment to the Liquor Licensing Act amended the Lotteries Act "by implication'', and he found Brannon not guilty. In the Forty Thieves case, bingo was assumed to be a game of chance, and that was not an issue.

Mr. Hector said The Forty Thieves case was never appealed, and it did not make sense that legislators would want bingo to be legal in licensed clubs, but not in other locations, like church basements.

It was "a logical necessity'' to assume the amendment to the Liquor Licensing Act also affected the Lotteries Act, since "two inconsistent laws can not both be deemed to be valid''.

But Crown Counsel Mr. Peter DeJulio described the Forty Thieves case as "a red herring''.

Bingo in Bermuda "appears to be legal on licensed premises'', but not elsewhere, he said.

While that was an "apparent anomaly'', it was not for the court to second guess Bermuda's legislators, Mr. DeJulio said.

In fact, if there was a way that the court could interpret the two statutes so they could "live side by side'', the court had a duty to do so, he said.

Inchcup, who admits to managing the bingo at Dockyard, is further charged with using premises for an illegal lottery.

Mr. Hector said bingo had been played in Bermuda for 50 years and was not mentioned in the Lotteries Act definition of a lottery, which was a game in which prizes were distributed "by lot or chance''.

Freeport Bingo required skill, he said. It was played with a minimum of nine cards per game, and there were several different types of games played and patterns to be recognised "in a timely fashion''. As well as marking the cards quickly and accurately, players had to quickly shout `BINGO' at the appropriate times, he said.

Mr. Hector said his client "went to a great deal of trouble'' to make sure he was acting legally before he got involved with bingo. He contacted both "law enforcement agencies'' and a lawyer and was told "everything was fine''.

The Minister of Labour and Home Affairs approved his application to bring in a bingo consultant from overseas, Mr. Hector said. One of the Ministry's conditions for employment of the consultant was "to train Bermudians in the playing of bingo''.

Mr. DeJulio argued the "skills'' Mr. Hector were referred to were "window dressing'' to provide entertainment and disguise what was essentially a game of chance.

Even in a raffle -- the purest form of lottery -- the skill to read and buy the ticket and identify a winning ticket was required, he said.

"It would almost be an insult to the common man to say that (bingo) requires skill,'' Mr. DeJulio said.

Lawyer Mr. David Cooper, representing DeFontes, was expected to make his arguments today.