Businesses starting to feel impact of looming ‘skill game’ deadline
Skill game machines are beginning to disappear from some Pennsylvania businesses as lawmakers face an Oct. 14 deadline to decide whether to legalize and regulate the devices.
HARRISBURG, Pa. —
Skill game machines are beginning to disappear from some Pennsylvania businesses as lawmakers face an Oct. 14 deadline to decide whether to legalize and regulate the devices.
Businesses begin removing skill games
Only four legislative session days remain before a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling classifying the devices as slot machines takes effect. Without legislative action, possession of the machines could become illegal across the state.
The machines have already been removed from Vape and Variety Convenience Store, where they once generated revenue and attracted customers who also purchased snacks and drinks.
“We are frustrated about this because it was making money for us, too,” owner Ali Haider Chandio said.
Chandio said lawmakers should find a way to regulate and tax the machines rather than ban them.
“If there is something and people like it and the business owners like it, there should be a way to regulate it, to put a tax on it or do something about it,” he said. “But they had enough time to do it.”
Lawmakers consider last-minute regulations
Lawmakers are considering last-minute proposals that would tax and regulate skill games. The debate includes questions about where the machines should be permitted and whether convenience stores should be allowed to operate them.
“The Supreme Court said these machines are illegal,” said state Rep. Russ Diamond, R-Lebanon County. “Slot machines need to be regulated just like every other slot machine.”
Diamond supports allowing the devices in private social clubs, liquor-licensed restaurants and truck stops that already offer legal gambling.
“We’re concerned about minor children having access to these things,” Diamond said.
He acknowledged that some businesses and private clubs have invested in the machines but said those operators accepted a risk.
“What they did, really, was they made a gamble, and they lost,” Diamond said.
Attorney general urges machine removal
Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday estimated that about 70,000 skill game machines are operating across the state. He called the situation “unprecedented” and urged businesses to begin arranging for the machines’ removal.
“According to the law, possessing one of the machines in itself would be unlawful,” Sunday said. “Unplugging the machine is not enough. The machine has to be removed from the premises.”
If lawmakers fail to act before Oct. 14, no Pennsylvania business may be permitted to keep the devices.