Sweepstakes' same as video poker
3:40 PM, Jul 30, 2012 | Comments
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck. Increasingly, lawyers and shop owners in South Carolina are trying to turn that adage on its ears as they argue with police, in court and to the public that machines that play like video poker, pay like video poker and sound like video poker are, instead, legal promotional sweepstakes games.
The battle is taking place around the country, but is particularly vexing in South Carolina where a contentious battle was fought more than a decade ago to banish the video poker that bears such a striking resemblance to these new games. There are at least 1,000 of the so-called sweepstakes machines in the state, according to an estimate from the Attorney General’s Office that was reported recently in The Greenville News. The machines increasingly are coming out of back rooms of small establishments and into the front of convenience stores, and even are finding homes in “Internet sweepstakes” cafes in strip malls.
The machines are different from video poker, proponents say, because the people who use them are buying coupons for goods or services and are receiving free entries to play games. They can then win cash prizes playing the games. They say the games are legitimate promotional contests on the order of fast-food retailer McDonald’s well-known Monopoly contest.
However, these sweepstakes games have much more in common with video poker than they do with any contest you might find on a box of French fries. For starters, as Assistant Attorney General Adam Whitsett argued in magistrate court in Taylors, the prizes are replenishing jackpots, not one-time awards as with promotional sweepstakes games. In fact, the games have many of the characteristics of video poker that have been outlined by the state Supreme Court.
Whitsett recently argued, and rightly, in court, “Just calling a video poker machine a sweepstakes doesn’t make it any less of a video poker machine.”
The operators of the machines say the games are no different than other promotions, arguing they just provide a more fun way — playing a casino-style computer game, for instance — to determine if a sweepstakes entry is a winner. Customers can ask for an instant reveal that shows if they have won, according to reporting in The Greenville News and other newspapers around the country
Such a contention sounds like, pardon the pun, a shell game. It’s seems clear that customers are using Sweepstakes machines to gamble, not to buy Internet time, prepaid phone cards or other products, as the operators contend.
This is video poker, or the next closest thing to it.
Several communities, including Mauldin and Greer, have passed moratoriums against the machines until either the Supreme Court or the Legislature can definitively rule on whether the machines are legal.
Sen. Larry Martin is among lawmakers who are ready to turn off the machines. He recently told Greenville News reporter Paul Alongi that if the games are able to get a foothold they will be just as hard to eradicate as video poker was more than a decade ago.
South Carolina fought a long and contentious battle against video poker in the 1990s. The games became entrenched in the state because there were no rules governing their use and operation. People, many already living on the margins and lured by the prospect of big payouts, spent their much-needed income on the machines.
Video poker became a $3 billion a year industry in the state, and it made already difficult conditions worse for many people struggling to get by in an already poor state.
The temporary moratoriums are a good first step, and more communities should consider them. The Attorney General’s Office has taken the correct position that these games are the same as video poker; they serve as an outlet for people who are seeking high-stakes games of chance; and whether they’re called sweepstakes or video poker, they prey on people who can’t afford to take risks with the limited resources they have.
There are legitimate questions about whether the current gambling law bans machines or if operators are exploiting a loophole that needs to be closed. Some communities have allowed the machines, and some have allowed them but are charging higher permitting fees. There needs to be clarity on what the state law allows and, to be consistent with the law that banned video poker in South Carolina, these machines should likewise be banned.
A ruling that’s expected later this summer in Taylors by Magistrate Charles Garrett should provide some guidance for law enforcement. That case is over a sweepstakes machine that was seized from a convenience store, with the Attorney General’s Office arguing that the machine violates existing gambling law.
It probably does. But lawmakers clearly are in the best position to define exactly what Internet sweepstakes machines are, and they would do well to amend the state’s gambling laws to ban the machines. Doing it in the coming legislative session, before the games have a chance to become entrenched like video poker did, makes a lot of sense; and would best serve the people of South Carolina, many of whom can’t afford to throw money away on unregulated games of chance, no matter what they are called.
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