“It’s a cancer that needs to be out of the state of Utah,” declared Utah State Senator Karen Mayne last week, as she introduced a bill that draws a bull’s-eye around so-called “fringe gambling.”
By Utah state law—and apparently, only in Utah—fringe gambling means “any gambling, lottery, fringe gaming device or video gaming device that is given, conducted or offered for use or sale by a business in exchange for anything of value or incident to the purchase of another good or service.”
Utah’s constitution actually forbids gambling of any kind, but somehow, Mayne believes, fringe gambling continues to slip through the net.
“If they want this kind of practice, it needs to be elsewhere,” Mayne said, “because it’s bringing down all our communities, and bringing drug use, more violence, all those kinds of things. These are slot machines that are in mini-marts, laundromats, beauty salons—and they’re more aggressive every single day.”
She cited a city attorney from Layton City who said gambling machines are being used to launder money from three locations and funnel nearly $200,000 across the Canadian border every month. In another instance, the lawyer said, a high school student was able to run up nearly $20,000 on his parent’s credit card, playing at a location adjacent to the school.
The machines are often placed in low-income areas, at convenience stores and ethnic markets, according to James Russell, an investigator with the state Attorney General’s Office. He told the Salt Lake Tribune, “The individuals and companies who are proliferating these machines all around Utah are doing so with no oversight, and no regard for the impact it has on the communities where they’re placing these machines.” And because the machines are unregulated, the state collects no taxes on them.
There have been past attempts to regulate fringe gambling, Mayne noted, but, because of “smart lawyers” and lobbyists, operators have found loopholes.
Her bill would specify what kind of machines are illegal, define which ones are considered “fringe,” increase criminal penalties for the owners, and increase how much damages customers can request if they lose money.
