Prosecutors in Oahu, Hawaii have been given a new weapon in their arsenal to fight illegal gambling: increased criminal penalties.
Gambling is almost entirely illegal in the 50th state.
According to Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney Steve Alm, who spoke to Honolulu Civil Beat, recently approved criminal penalties for closing down gambling rooms and to incentivize landlords not to rent space to game room operators could prove decisive.
Alm said, “Gambling houses are all over the island. No question about it,” Alm said. “We think this could be a real game changer.”
Gambling rooms have sprung up all across Oahu on the Waianae coast, where Nanakuli-Maili Neighborhood Board Chairwoman Patty Kahanamoku-Teruya, commented, “In Nanakuli we have a gambling house that we have been trying to shut down for 18 years. For 18 years the community had to get impacted by this gambling house on Hawaiian homelands and we don’t have enforcement. Why?”
She added that gambling houses increase traffic, drug use and prostitution. Police say they raided 50 game rooms last year and 29 so far this year but that many others continue to flourish. Police say an investigation can take weeks to gather enough evidence to obtain a search warrant.
A complication: Owning a gaming machine is not illegal. What makes it illegal is money changing hands. Which complicates things for the police.
Alm is targeting the profit incentive for commercial property owners by filing nuisance abatement complaints against commercial property companies. Which can force a building to close for up to a year.
Alm told Civil Beat: “If we are successful in the lawsuit, the building owner can be deprived of the use of the building for up to a year, so for a building owner that is a lot.” The prosecutor added, “They will not have income from the building and it is embarrassing for them to be named. Otherwise, it is probably an attractive way to make money by renting it out to somebody that is going to have a gambling game and they may get more than the market rate to make money that way.”
A bill signed into law in June increases criminal penalties for anyone working in an illegal game rooms. It bumps it up from misdemeanor to felony. Alm commented, “It’s called promoting gambling. If it is in the first degree, that’s now a class B felony.” He added, “The people that are actually physically working it that day, it’s a class C felony. You can get probation and up to five years in prison and it’s not deferral eligible so it will be on your record forever.”
