{"id":315451,"date":"2026-10-27T17:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T17:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/315451\/"},"modified":"2026-10-27T17:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T17:14:10","slug":"pa-lotterys-smart-chip-play-tablets-offer-alternative-to-banned-skill-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/315451\/","title":{"rendered":"Pa. Lottery\u2019s Smart Chip Play tablets offer alternative to banned skill games"},"content":{"rendered":"

PENNSYLVANIA (WHP) \u2014 With skill games now banned across Pennsylvania<\/a>, some small businesses are turning to a Pennsylvania Lottery tablet system called Smart Chip Play Games.<\/p>\n

Smart Chip Play Games allow users to play lottery games on tablets that can often resemble skill games. <\/p>\n

To play, customers can request a Smart Chip Play card and load between $10 and $200 onto it. After inserting the card into a tablet, players can choose from 12 available games.<\/p>\n

Ronald Weagly, the co-owner of the Knotty Pine in York County, said the business joined the program at the beginning of 2026 amid uncertainty about the future of skill games.<\/p>\n

“The lottery came to us the beginning of this year and offered this as a pilot program they were doing. We elected to join this because we didn’t at that point know what direction the skill games were going to go,” Weagly said. <\/p>\n

The system launched in 2024, and the games are currently available at 190 participating locations, according to the Pennsylvania Lottery’s website.<\/p>\n

Bets can range from 10 cents to $30. Winnings of less than $2,500 are added back to the card as credit for additional play or can be converted to cash. Prizes exceeding $2,500 are paid directly by the lottery after a claim form is processed.<\/p>\n

“We had a gentleman in here that won $10,000 on a dollar bet,” Weagly said. <\/p>\n

Weagly said The Knotty Pine receives 5% back on each game play. He said the lottery tablets are not fully replacing the revenue lost from skill games, but he hopes they can help offset some of the impact after skill games were banned earlier this month.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s unfortunate that the legislators couldn’t come to some kind of agreement, you know, to help the small businesses out,\u201d Weagly said. \u201cThat money’s not going to be there now, and it’s going to be very difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Pennsylvania Lottery says play data from Smart Chip Play Games is anonymous and is gathered to improve performance. The lottery says personal data is collected only on claim forms, which must be filled out for wins greater than $600.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PENNSYLVANIA (WHP) \u2014 With skill games now banned across Pennsylvania, some small businesses are turning to a Pennsylvania…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-315451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315451","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=315451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}