Sheriff’s deputies near Sacramento in California are making a concerted effort to shut down sweepstakes cafes that the authorities consider an illegal form of gambling.
Last week they descended on a business called Silk and Stars, where a variety of customers were spending $2 apiece on electronic games and purchasing internet time on computers or telephone cards.
The so-called “sweepstakes” games that they sell are on computers and bear a striking resemblance to slot machines. A sign above the 60 casino terminals in the establishment would tend to support that view: “Daily Maximum Payout $500 A Day.”
These types of games gross an estimated $10 billion a year in the U.S.
The police raid was part of an annual trend among law enforcement to crack down on internet cafes and sweepstakes games. Lawmakers in at least 19 states are trying to deal with it with bills and courts are taking up the challenge to figure out whether the games actually are gambling, or something else. Several states, such as Ohio, have voted to ban the games, or so severely restrict them that they are unprofitable for a business to operate.
Several such cases and appeals are making their way to the California Supreme Court. The games’ defenders claim that the sweepstakes games are little different from games that companies such as McDonalds offer their customers as marketing tools. However, one appeals court has ruled that although the games offer predetermined results that they are for all intents and purposes slot machines.
California legislator Rudy Salas disagrees. The assemblyman, who has authored a bill to restrict the games, told USA Today, “This is a prolific problem that we’re seeing in our neighborhoods up and down the state, where we’re seeing these illegal gaming sweepstakes cafes opening up with a myriad of problems and issues … of drugs, of prostitution, impacts to local legitimate businesses in these strip malls where these things are occurring.”
Supporters of Salas’s bill include law enforcement and municipalities, card rooms and gaming tribes, the last two because they consider the games competition. The California Bureau of Gambling Control has doubled the numbers of agents it has assigned to investigating such establishments.
