'Hunting for Bambi' turns out to be hoax.

The mayor of Las Vegas says the "Hunting for Bambi" games allegedly being played in the desert near that city were nothing more than a hoax to sell video tapes.

On July 10, a Las Vegas television station reported that men were paying $5,000 to $10,000 to hunt naked women with paintball guns.

That prompted Brass Eagle Inc. of Bentonville, the world's largest manufacturer of paintball guns, to condemn "Hunting for Bambi," saying in a July 15 news release that playing paintball in the nude "may result in significant bodily injury."

Brass Eagle asked Las Vegas officials to investigate.

The game's promoter, Michael Burdick, later admitted that "Hunting for Bambi" was a hoax, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said in a July 24 news conference.

Although Burdick had previously insisted that the hunts were real, Las Vegas investigators found that the purported safaris were nothing but a hoax to promote the "Hunting for Bambi" videos that Burdick sells, which show nude women being hunted by men.