JEFFERSON CITY- The rise of riverboat casinos helped spur the fall of the neighborhood bingo game, longtime moneymakers for charities, churches and civic groups across the country.

So a Missouri lawmaker is borrowing an idea from Washington and Oregon to create a big-prize bingo game that links players throughout Missouri. His proposal would allow bingo halls across the state to join up nightly for a televised game with a jackpot that could top $50,000.

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Ray Salva, D-Sugar Creek, hopes that the promise of a big jackpot - more than 10 times what the law currently allows - would lure back bingo players who have been abandoning cramped basements and civic centers for the glitzier gambling found at casinos.

At a set time each night, bingo patrons who paid $1 to play linked bingo would take a break from their local games and compete against bingo players statewide. Players would mark their cards as they watch the bingo balls being drawn live on satellite television.

"It would be one large bingo game," said Salva.

Getting such a measure passed could be difficult; a similar proposal last year never even got a hearing.

Salva said bringing the linked game to Missouri might help fight waning interest in bingo. Bingo games have been in free fall since casinos were legalized in 1993. The state had more than 900 bingo vendors in 1994. The number has dropped to about 470 now, said the Missouri Gaming Commission.

In Illinois, the drop-off has not been as sharp. The number of bingo vendors has fallen in the past decade from about 1,050 to 810 today. Last year, Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed a law allowing bingo vendors to file for a license every three years rather than every year. This session, a bill sponsored by Lou Lang, D-Skokie, would eliminate the tax on bingo in Illinois. There is no proposal in Illinois to legalize linked bingo.

Only Washington and Oregon now allow linked bingo games.

The bingo business in Oregon was suffering when lawmakers authorized linked bingo last year. People played the first linked game last month, so it's too early to tell whether such games have boosted business, said Victoria Cox of the Oregon Department of Justice charitable activities section.

Washington lawmakers legalized the game in 1999, when bingo was at the peak of its popularity, said Brian Lane, Washington nonprofit coordinator. But Washington's casino business has grown since 1999, and linked bingo has slowed but not stopped bingo's fall.

Hall operators in Missouri say the state's $3,600 limit on bingo jackpots, coupled with strict regulations on advertising and bingo workers, make it hard for bingo halls to compete with casinos.

Bingo workers in Missouri must belong to the charitable organization for two years before they can help at a bingo event. A measure proposed by Sen. Larry Taylor, R-Shell Knob, would eliminate the two-year restriction.

"I just can't compete with the boats," said Bob Hughes, director of the Gardenville Community Center in St. Louis, which sponsors bingo five nights a week.

Hughes said groups hold bingo games at the center's Gardenville South Bingo parlor at 2908 Telegraph Road to raise money for police, firefighters, Scouts, food pantries and churches. He said the arrival of casinos caused a large drop in attendance for bingo games at Gardenville.

"We're going out of business, there's no question about it," he said.

The Epilepsy Foundation in St. Louis gets a chunk of its funding from bingo games. It started offering bingo in 1984 to fund programs that educate people about epilepsy and help people with epilepsy find employment and live independently.

When casinos came to town, the foundation saw a drop-off in its games, said Darla Templeton, the foundation's executive vice president.

To keep from losing money, the foundation moved its bingo location to a neighborhood with more senior citizens and got a second bingo license so it could host more games each week.

Templeton said she thought combined bingo games could bring in more players.

"We would be willing to host multiple hall bingo games," Templeton said. "It would certainly be a positive thing for us."

Salva said the networked bingo games would help level the playing field for bingo vendors.

"If we're going to allow outside entities to come in and push gaming in the state of Missouri, why should we not allow our charitable organizations the same kind of opportunity?" Salva said.

But Hughes said it might be difficult to get enough of the state's bingo vendors to link up to the multiple-hall bingo system.

"Bingo operators are like farmers, because they all say they need help but they don't want to join together to help each other," he said.

Helen Forrest, 79, of St. Louis, is a longtime bingo player. She tried the linked games in Oregon while visiting her daughter in Portland. She said playing against so many other people made it difficult to win, and letting the remote operator know when there was a bingo was complicated.

"I don't think it's a good idea, there's too much competition," Forrest said. "It was almost impossible to win, so we quit playing it."

Even so, Salva is hoping the Republican-controlled Legislature and Gov. Matt Blunt, also a Republican, would back linked bingo as a way to raise money for education without a tax hike. Under the bill, the fee paid by the company that broadcasts the networked bingo games would go toward funding elementary and secondary education. Salva said there was no estimate on how much money such games would raise.

Blunt has not taken a position on the bill yet, said Spence Jackson, his spokesman.