But the switch has some bingo players fuming, said Elks treasurer Vina Wolf.

"I brought in a cash register on Friday the 13th and the players rebelled," she said.

"There were some people who just didn't see the value of it and I've been talking to bingo organizers and they thought it was a great idea because you can put accountability into a place where you really had to rely on trusting someone in the past to make sure they weren't making mistakes."

Bingos are held at the Elks every night of the week. Anywhere between $15,000 and $22,000 will change hands in three hours, with an average of $100 spent by each player.

In the past there have been mistakes, enough to warrant undercover RCMP investigations to track down the missing money.

"With some of the bingo fraud cases in the past and talking to other people I thought there's a really easy way to fix this: I can just get a cash register," said Wolf.

Wolf said with the cash register in place staff can ensure all the money that goes for prizes, goes to the prizes.

There is one other way Wolf thought of to keep track of money -- volunteers would keep a record of each bingo card they sold.

"On the cards there are serial numbers and if the bingo players purchase their cards consecutively, you could do that," said Wolf.

"But you see, bingo players like to choose the special lucky card. They could find it sometimes on the bottom or sometimes in the middle or they use a sixth sense to determine their card anywhere in the stack," she said.

With a cash register, the person on the till can punches in all of the sales. A sales receipt journal is also kept in the machine and the player gets a proof of purchase ticket.

"I think it will take some time to catch on, but it is, from a management perspective, an excellent thing," said Wolf.

Protests notwithstanding, the Elks are planning to bring in more cash registers to record sales and to avoid holding up bingo traffic.

The tills will be made available to other groups for a minimal fee which will pay for the machines.