So-called \u201cskill games\u201d have been a source of debate in Pennsylvania for years, centering around one particular question: Are they gambling?<\/p>\n
Whether one believes skill games qualify as gambling machines or not, in part because there are no safety regulations for them, the games can pose risks to players.<\/p>\n
The issue of the legality of the slot-like machines under Pennsylvania\u2019s gaming laws reached the state\u2019s Supreme Court last Thursday, when justices heard arguments from both sides. The case was brought to the court<\/a> as a result of appeals by the state attorney general\u2019s office and the Department of Revenue.<\/p>\n Skill games, widely found in gas stations and corner stores, are presently not classified as gambling due to a second stage of the game where players can win back lost money.<\/p>\n Arguing that skill games should be legally considered separate from gambling, attorney Matthew Haverstick, representing games manufacturer Pace-O-Matic, said in court that the second stage of the game allows players to win back 105% of the player\u2019s stake with the chance to win every time.<\/p>\n The attorney general\u2019s office countered that the second stage doesn\u2019t mean the games should not be considered gambling. \u201cIt is not enough for that component of the game to be considered predominant,\u201d Susan Affronti of the attorney general\u2019s office said<\/a>.<\/p>\n The controversy around the skill games comes from the absence of regulation. They do not have to comply with state gaming regulations, including following certain safety policies and paying gaming taxes.<\/p>\n Licensed casinos, which are held to certain standards under the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board and pay a 54% tax on slot machine revenue, maintain that skill games should follow the same standards for regulations and taxes.<\/p>\n \u201cThe gaming industry has delivered billions and billions of tax revenues, and you can\u2019t just allow people to come in and plug in a bunch of machines, flaunt the rules, pay no taxes, and claim no responsibility for any of the problems associated with their machines, including crimes from one end of the state to the other,\u201d Pete Shelly, a registered lobbyist for Parx Casino, told Casino Reports.<\/p>\n Unregulated can lead to crime<\/p>\n Coincidentally, in a separate case involving skill games earlier this month, a jury in Philadelphia<\/a> held Pace-O-Matic liable in the murder of a store clerk. Ashokkumar Patel was fatally shot in 2020 by Jafet De Jesus Rodriguez, who had lost thousands of dollars on an unregulated skill games machine at Craig\u2019s Food Mart in Hazelton and was returning to rob the store of about $14,000.<\/p>\n Rodriguez was sentenced to life without parole, and the jury found Pace-O-Matic liable for not having proper safety regulations, such as ticket redemption machines that eliminate the need for store clerks to handle the money.<\/p>\n During the trial, other issues around the absence of regulations were brought up, such as stores refusing to pay customers their winnings.<\/p>\n \u201cOften and still the stores would come up with ways to not pay someone who [won] a game,\u201d Pace-O-Matic\u2019s compliance officer, Brian Langan, said in court. \u201cAnd that\u2019s, of course, unacceptable. There would be, \u2018Yes, I won $500. Please pay me.\u2019 [Then] \u2018Sorry. We don\u2019t have the money here. The manager is not here, you\u2019ll have to wait until tomorrow or maybe Wednesday when the operator brings more money.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Shelly contrasted the \u201cwild west\u201d of skill games with the ordered world of casinos, saying, \u201cYou cannot go around and find $14,000 [at a casino] sitting in a cigar box. It just doesn\u2019t work that way. It\u2019s night and day.\u201d<\/p>\n Casinos have security measures, including ID checks and cameras, to ensure that all winnings are handled safely, Shelly explained. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the safest places to be.\u201d<\/p>\n Pace-O-Matic responded to the verdict with a statement<\/a> saying it held no responsibility and would appeal the decision.<\/p>\n Past decisions<\/p>\n The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania ruled<\/a> on whether the machines are considered gambling when it decided in 2023 that skill games operated by Banilla Games, a competitor of Pace-O-Matic, were not gambling. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court declined to hear the case in 2024, so the games remain legal.<\/p>\n Pace-O-Matic\u2019s Langan referenced the legal dispute in court on Thursday, saying, \u201cSo the loophole that has been talked about in this court case, it\u2019s not a loophole. It\u2019s the law. And [founder Michael Pace] was smart enough to design a machine to be in accordance with the law.\u201d<\/p>\n Skill games machines can be found in numerous states across the country. There are around 70,000 in Pennsylvania, and the American Gaming Association estimates<\/a> that the state\u2019s regulated slots keep 7.7 cents per dollar on average while unregulated machines keep 25 cents on average.<\/p>\n The state tried to tax skill games in this year\u2019s budget, but lawmakers couldn\u2019t agree. State Sen. Gene Yaw said<\/a> the skill games industry benefited workers and brought jobs to the community. In 2024<\/a>, Pace-O-Matic said about 80% of its revenue goes toward the small businesses that host its games.<\/p>\n There are about 25,000 regulated slot machines in casinos in Pennsylvania, which generated about $1.2 billion in state gaming taxes over the past year.<\/p>\n \u201c[Skill games] have no provisions to prevent or mitigate underage gaming or problem gambling. They pay no gaming taxes,\u201d Shelly said. \u201cIt just is inherently unfair. It\u2019s just not gonna work.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So-called \u201cskill games\u201d have been a source of debate in Pennsylvania for years, centering around one particular question:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[26463,26466,26465,28,30,29,26464,14251,26468,1979,26467],"class_list":["post-44576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-casino-reports","tag-gambling-machines","tag-jafet-de-jesus-rodriguez","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-pete-shelly","tag-regulation","tag-safety-regulations","tag-skill-games","tag-the-states-supreme-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44576","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=44576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}