COLUMBIA - The Catawba Indian Nation won't build a high-stakes bingo hall in Santee unless it gets an act of Congress making the land part of its reservation, say an economic advisor and a bingo operator employed by the tribe.

That move in Congress could allow 24-hour-a-day play at the bingo hall, as well as jackpots in excess of $100,000.

Opponents of the change, including Gov. Mark Sanford, fear the law would also allow the Catawbas to open a Las Vegas-style casino.

The tribe says it has no plans to offer casino games.

If Congress approves, the new bingo hall would be governed by the federal Indian Gaming Regulation Act, rather than by the Catawbas' current agreement with the state of South Carolina. That agreement, signed in 1993, settled the tribe's claim to 144,000 acres in York, Lancaster and Chester counties.

The state pact let the tribe open its first bingo hall in Rock Hill and also said the Catawbas could operate a second hall anywhere in the state. The tribe has chosen a spot visible from Interstate 95 near Santee, about 130 miles southeast of the Catawba reservation outside Rock Hill.

But Terry Collier of Southern Property Management, which assists in the tribe's economic development efforts, said this week that the new bingo hall wouldn't be profitable unless it can operate under the federal act.

The agreement that governs the tribe's Rock Hill bingo hall includes a $100,000 limit on jackpots and a 12-hour-per-day limit on operations. Federal jurisdiction would free the Santee operation from those restrictions.

"We want to be able to operate 24 hours, seven days a week," Bobby Price, chief operating officer for bingo overseers New River Management and Development Corp., said Thursday.

As for a higher jackpot limit, Price said, "I don't think the tribe has even addressed that yet."

Catawba Chief Gilbert Blue could not be reached Thursday.

There would be no change in the Catawbas' Rock Hill bingo hall.

Unlike the Rock Hill hall, which gets 59 percent of its players from nearby North Carolina, the Santee hall would be in a thinly-populated rural area.

But because of its location roughly halfway between New York City and Miami on the main route from the Northeast to Florida, the I-95 exit at Santee boasts at least nine motels and two restaurants.

"We'd focus on the 70,000 cars a day that pass that Santee exit," Price said.

Bill Thompson, a University of Nevada-Las Vegas professor who is an expert on the gambling industry, said Santee sounds like a good location for high-stakes bingo.

"People might make that their last stop before they drive into Florida," he said. "This will be a way of sucking an extra hundred bucks out of the snowbirds."

However, U.S. Reps Jim DeMint of Greenville and Gresham Barrett of Westminster, as well as Sanford, oppose federal gaming act status for the bingo hall. The three, all Republicans, say they fear that would make it easier for the tribe to get approval for a full-blown gambling casino in Santee.

U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, whose district includes Santee, encouraged the Catawbas to build their bingo hall there to bring jobs to the economically-depressed region. He is pushing for the tribe to get federal status for the operation.

South Carolina's two U.S. senators, Democrat Ernest "Fritz" Hollings and Republican Lindsey Graham, also have said they favor legislation putting the new bingo hall under the gaming act.

"The provision that's been discussed would prevent (the Catawbas) from ever having a casino," said Graham's spokesman, Kevin Bishop.

Price, the tribe's bingo operator, said the Catawbas have no problem with that. "It has never been the intention of the Catawba Nation to go and open up a Las Vegas-style casino." -- THE ASSOCIATED PRESS CONTRIBUTED TO THIS ARTICLE.

-- HENRY EICHEL: (803) 779-5037; HEICHEL@CHARLOTTEOBSERVER.COM.