CHAMBERSBURG \u2013 In June this year, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said that games of skill are actually slot machines and need to be regulated by Pennsylvania\u2019s Gaming Act and Crimes Code.<\/p>\n
As a result, any business that has skill games must remove them if they are not adhering to the rules.<\/p>\n
The Court gave the state 120 days before the decision takes effect to figure out what to do \u2013 that would be on October 13.<\/p>\n
The Liquor Control Board sent out a press release yesterday that said based on the Supreme Court decision, the skill games are actually slot machines. From a technical sense, a slot machine would be illegal in the local bar.<\/p>\n
Attorney Clint Barkdoll said, \u201cState police would have the right to come in and seize them. That is the perspective they\u2019re talking about all of these skill game machines. And I thought it was interesting in that press release, they\u2019re saying it\u2019s not enough just to unplug them and put them back in the closet at your local legion. They\u2019re saying you need to have those out of your building by this deadline date in October, if the state legislature has not addressed this, so you\u2019re going to see a point here, and I don\u2019t know when that is, maybe two, three weeks as we get into the end of the month. If it looks like Harrisburg is at a stalemate, I think all of these bars and veterans clubs, fraternal clubs, they\u2019re going to be calling the vendors, saying, what\u2019s the plan for you to come around and pick up these games, these machines? Because they\u2019re not going to want to run the risk of state police coming in there, seizing them, issuing fines, etc. I still think, from a practical standpoint, how does the state police get their arms around this? It\u2019s reported, there are over 70,000 of these machines in Pennsylvania as we speak.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michele Jansen of News Talk 103.7FM pointed out, \u201cI can\u2019t help but think, is there some strategy behind these press releases? Maybe who\u2019s asking the state police to put out press releases like this because they need something to put pressure on these legislators to do something. Now, I think it\u2019s so unfair that we\u2019ve had these things around for years and years and years, and we\u2019ve allowed them to exist in this gray area. We\u2019ve allowed different places, and especially our VFWs and these kinds of social organizations, to become dependent on this. That\u2019s the blame of the legislature right there, and the governor, over the years, the different ones who have not done anything about this, and now to say we\u2019re going to go Josh Shapiro\u2019s way and give the state, its 300 million a year from the 52% tax on these, no, you can\u2019t do that after you\u2019ve dragged your feet and not fixed this for people. So my suspicion is there\u2019s a reason they\u2019re putting out these things, and I feel like there\u2019s no way they can do anything but at least find a compromise position that allows some of these social organizations to maintain these things. But it\u2019s such a bad, bad thing that has been allowed to happen. And I\u2019m just always suspicious now that people aren\u2019t using all of these things very politically.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barkdoll agreed, \u201cI think these press releases have been very strategic to create pressure, and it\u2019s working. I mean, you can see clubs that are going to get that release yesterday, they\u2019re going to be calling their local Reps and Senators, saying, when are you going to do something about this?\u201d<\/p>\n
The PA General Assembly is still in recess for another two weeks.<\/p>\n
Barkdoll said, \u201cBy the time they come back, there\u2019s going to be a very narrow window to get something done on this, and people I talk to and hear from in Harrisburg, they tell me there\u2019s not much going on with this. There were discussions before they went on recess. There\u2019s nothing happening now while they\u2019re out, and you just wonder, much like we\u2019ve seen with the budget, will they be able to get together and pull this off? And what\u2019s going to be about a two-week window when they come back into session.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jansen confirmed, \u201cI\u2019ve heard the same thing. Like no chatter, nothing really coming up. So I think that\u2019s dead on.\u201d<\/p>\n
PA Representative Rob Kauffman said, \u201cI think folks may not realize how this, even if they don\u2019t play skill games or aren\u2019t involved in such and such organization, how it impacts the community. I mean, many of these organizations give back to the community. They\u2019re donations for this little league or this charitable endeavor, or a small business that helps keep their bottom line in the right direction with these skill games, and so that\u2019s where it really means something in the community, and I am increasingly concerned that the powers that be are not digging in to come to any kind of consensus on this issue. I do believe that this narrative that\u2019s coming out, the releases coming out, it\u2019s political. Why is it political? Well, it\u2019s possibly political because the governor\u2019s office sees this as a wedge to get in the community of many Republican areas because he sees well. I don\u2019t see a consensus coming about, so I want somebody to blame it on. I want somebody to pay a political price. So we\u2019re just going to throw this out there as a grenade.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pat Ryan of News Talk 103.7FM insisted, \u201cFull stop on that one. The governor then is a miserable, rotten liar right now to you as a skill game operator or as someone that might be in receipt of this. He\u2019s the leader of the state. He can make something happen here. He can bring together both sides and figure out the path here. Make no mistake, Josh Shapiro doesn\u2019t deserve another four years. Here\u2019s an excellent example of the loser that can\u2019t handle leadership on this particular item.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHAMBERSBURG \u2013 In June this year, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said that games of skill are actually slot…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[25763,118178,28,30,29,118179],"class_list":["post-283382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-games","tag-happen","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-skill"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}