Earlier this year, lawmakers considered legislation to legalize devices that look like slot machines at truck stops and convenience stores. They ended up rejecting those bills, but now they’re popping up anyway.
One of the most hotly debated topics in the General Assembly this year was an effort to legalize devices sometimes known as "skill games." Supporters call them that because they say winning at them requires some level of skill as opposed to dumb luck. Opponents used to call them "gray machines" because they existed in a gray area of the law until a court eventually found them to be illegal.
Now, several machines are back up and running in Henrico. Delegate Rodney Willet of Henrico says Virginia is returning to a gray area.
"I think we need to regulate them and have a clear set of rules and a clear set of taxes because if we’re going to have these machines, we should be making revenue from them," Willet says. "If we’re not going to have them, then let's make that clear. But I do think that the gray areas with the gray machines are unfortunately still there."
The new machines operate without the player inserting money because a cashier or bartender acts as a middleman. Delegate Paul Krizek of Fairfax County says the company that operates these things, known as Pace-O-Matic, is trying to exploit a loophole.
"It really makes you question whether you would ever consider legalizing skill games because it just rewards [these] kinds of bad actor companies like Pace-O-Matic that are deliberately looking for a legal loophole," Krizek says.
A spokesman for Attorney General Jason Miyares says the office is "looking at whether this company is in compliance with the law."
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
