The Ohio Casino Control Commission last week issued 28 new rules for skill-based games, including new application and licensing fees of up to $500,000 annually and created three categories of games:
• Games that do not give prizes other than free replays (pinball and arcade-style games)
• Games where players use cranes and claws to grab prizes
• Games where players redeem tickets, tokens or vouchers for a prize.
The changes are designed to “weed out all the illegal activity,” said Commission spokesman Jessica Franks, quoted by the Plain Dealer.
The games covered include games where children use claws to try to grab prizes and games that issue tokens or tickets. The legislature adopted a bill in 2015 giving the commission authority over the games. The commission staff educated itself about the games for a year before issuing the rules.
Franks told the Plain Dealer, “We tried to work with the industry and various stakeholders. Our goal is to make it easy to identify the people doing this legitimately and make it easy to weed out and shut down the illegal slot machines.”
Prizes given out in such games cannot include cash, gift cards, plays on games of chance, lottery tickets, bingo, guns, tobacco or alcohol. The value of the prize can’t be larger than $10.
