Lawmakers at the 90th session of the South Dakota legislature will have three Deadwood gambling bills to consider.
Senate Bill 56 is designed to clarify the Supreme Court’s ruling that free play cannot be taxed. The bill provides guidelines for calculating adjusted gross proceeds in regard to the gaming tax.
Senate Bill 57 would authorize and regulate craps, keno and roulette within the city limits of Deadwood. In November, voters statewide approved allowing the three games. Deadwood Gaming Association Executive Director Mike Rodman said, “We’ll be watching this one closely. We’ve worked hard to get here. We’re working with the gaming commission behind the scenes. This allows for putting it in statute. In order for the gaming commission to promulgate the rules, they need to have the authority to do so. Everything we’re working toward has games in properties and playing by July 1. Obviously the gaming commission is going to have to bless that. They have the responsibility and the authority to make sure we’re ready for those games.”
Senate Bill 58, Rodman explained, addresses “changes that the gaming commission is proposing regarding fines and hearings, streamlining that process and clarifying suspension of licensing, that type of thing, an increase in the maximum allowable fines. It’s a general clean-up of things.”
Also under Senate Bill 58, which was unanimously approved by the Senate Commerce and Energy Committee, fines would increase for those involved in the Deadwood gambling businesses who break the rules. Gaming Commission Executive Secretary Larry Eliason said, “The rationale is simply that the fines that are in the code now were put in place in 1989, when Deadwood started, when bets were $5, and most establishments were mom-and-pop places. It was a different world. The businesses are bigger now, and Deadwood is a billion-dollar-a-year industry.”
Slot machine manufacturer distributors who now face a maximum fine of $100,000 would pay up to $250,000 under the proposed legislation. Licensed operators would pay up to $100,000 instead of $25,000. And a retailer or gaming property owner’s maximum fine would double from $12,500 to $25,000. Eliason said the possibility of a penalty involving “a check with a lot of zeroes” helps prevent repeat violations. “We try to get compliance. We don’t try to get the money,” he said.
