King was the state's top law enforcement official during the height of the legal controversy over the electronic bingo.
He is now the creator and president of a company called Innovate! Technologies Group LLC that is behind a new bingo game called O-craps!, which he said is a class II bingo game that is played on a table.
"It looks like a craps game, but it's bingo balls, bingo cards, daubing. It's bingo," King said.
According to the O-craps! website, the game is played on a traditional craps table “that has been modified with several patent pending changes that preserve its class II characteristics. It features a patent pending felt that mimics the experience of a traditional craps game but is, in essence, an accounting grid for the bingo game being played.”
"I don't know of anything like it that's in the market. I don't know if it is the next generation. It's a different take on bingo," King said.
King said the story of his involvement in the venture is a long one, but the idea came about after a conversation with friends.
"They said, 'I wish somebody could think of a way to do this.' So, I did," King said.
O-craps! belongs to Innovate! Technologies, King said. He formed the company last year, according to state incorporation records.
King, who left office after losing the 2010 GOP primary, described the venture as a hobby. He said his primary business focus since leaving public office has been his Montgomery law practice.
King as attorney general repeatedly clashed with then-Gov. Bob Riley over the legality of electronic bingo and the casinos that cropped up across the state.
Riley formed a task force and began raiding the casinos in an effort to shut them down.
Riley said the slot machine look-alikes were illegal and not what was intended by state laws allowing charities to operate bingo games. King maintained Alabama law might allow bingo to be played electronically under certain conditions.
Asked if he sold O-craps! in Alabama, King said they only place he thought it could conceivably be placed was at casinos run by the Poarch Band of Creek Indians
"Right now we don't have anybody in state government who seems to respect the law, number one. And number two, that's not really what we're interested in. Our market is really out of state," King said.
O-craps! was an exhibitor at the National Indian Gaming Association trade show last month, and is listed in the NIGA directory as an associate member.
“O-craps! is Class II bingo like you’ve never seen it and will leave you and your customers saying that this is definitely not your grandparents’ bingo -- Troy King, President innovate! Technologies Group,” read an excerpt in indiangaming.com on new games and technologies to be unveiled at the National Indian Gaming Association trade show last month.
The O-craps! website includes an analysis by a California law firm telling King the game satisfies the requirements of class II bingo under the Indian Gaming Regulatory ACT.
According to the letter and O-craps! website, it takes at least two players to play the game. The player purchases a bingo card by putting a chip on the line and the bingo caller activates a bingo card. A traditional bingo ball machine blows a ball across the table. Players daub their cards and announce bingo.
"Each ball thrown may also yield the player a winning interim bingo game," according to the site.
Players play an interim game by placing chips in the “Field and Proposition, Hard Way, Sevens and on the Bonus Point Positions” on the table.
Some of the balls used in the game have dots on a pair of dice on one side of the ball and the corresponding bingo number on the other, according to the site.
"The colorful names and dice combinations are for entertainment purposes and are not used in any fashion to determine the player’s bingo winnings," according to a description on the O-craps! website.
Source: Al.com