Ohio’s Casino Control Commission plans to crack down on so-called “skill games” that pay out cash prizes, and which take advantage of regulations that allow such family-friendly operations as Chuck-E-Cheese and Dave and Busters to give prizes for playing games in their restaurants.
The people the commission is after are businesses that set up computer terminals with games that function much like slot machines, and where the players go away with prizes, often cash prizes.
Ohio’s four state-authorized casinos are the only places where operators may offer games that do not rely completely on skill and pay cash prizes. In spite of this fact, “skill game” parlors are proliferating in the Buckeye state like mushrooms.
The commission hopes to force them underground with more regulations aimed at directly at them.
The commission’s Andromeda Morrison told WKSU: “With this licensing scheme it gives the state powers that it hasn’t had the entire time that these purported skill game operators have been operating in order to target them and get them out of the state.”
