Georgia-based Pace-O-Matic, which supplies unregulated gaming machines under the “Pennsylvania Skill” brand to locations around the state, is suing the Pennsylvania Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement (BLCE) over the agency’s threats to revoke liquor licenses to establishments hosting the machines.
Pace-O-Matic has been using a 2014 ruling in another lawsuit that held the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board lacks jurisdiction to regulate the slot-like games to claim the alcohol bureau also lacks jurisdiction to ban the machines.
Pace-O-Matic has placed its so-called “skill games” in diverse locations ranging from gas stations to pizza parlors, laundromats and other businesses, using a dubious claim that skill is involved in the machine outcomes to say the games are legal. Normally, the only “skill” involved is deciding to play on when shown the result of one spin. The function can even be disabled by the player or location, allowing the games to operate just like slot machines.
Pennsylvania law enforcement agencies have joined legitimate casino licensees, the American Gaming Association and the Association of Gaming Equipment Manufacturers in a campaign to ban the machines, which operate without regulatory oversight and often are placed where children can play them. The AGA, AGEM and the casinos point out that the games have not been certified as fair to the player, and that their operators pay no licensing fees or gaming taxes to the state, and thus are taking revenue from Pennsylvania’s coffers.
The alcohol bureau officially agrees that the Pace-O-Matic machines are illegal gambling devices, directing efforts by state police to seize the games and threatening to lift the liquor licenses of their operators.
The state legislature, meanwhile, has seen little action on bills to specifically ban the games, so operators have continued to offer them.
In its latest lawsuit, Pace-O-Matic alleges that the BLCE has conspired with the state’s casino operators to harm its business. The allegations in the case include claims that casinos are acting as informants in their areas to get the BLCE to enforce removal of the machines.
The BLCE has yet to publicly respond to the lawsuit.
