Bowie County District Attorney Bobby Lockhart and Sheriff James Prince didn't exactly tell video slot parlors to leave the county by sundown. They just asked them to obey the law.
Both men say that admonition, hand-delivered in writing to more than a dozen parlors within the last two weeks, has prompted complaints by slot operators and praise from some residents concerned about persistent talk of illegal gambling in the area's video-slot business.
"All I can tell 'em is I think they can legally use 'em if they follow the law, but if you follow the law nobody over 14 is going to go in the places," said Mr. Lockhart.
Eddie G. Shell, an attorney for a trade group of Texas game room operators, said he got a number of alarmed phone calls after the warnings went out. He said he and the operators remain concerned that officials issued them before sitting down with his clients to hear why they think they are operating legally.
"Everybody agrees that the law is horribly, horribly ambiguous. And so it's always been customary when something is that unclear just to wait until the Legislature clarifies it," Mr. Shell said. "These business people have invested thousands and thousands of dollars. ... They have a right to have a clear law."
Bowie County officials say their influx of slot parlors actually began in the city of Texarkana, where at least seven were in business by the summer of 1999.As in other communities in Texas, they say, the onslaught appeared to coincide with the defeat of legislation aimed at stiffening state anti-gambling laws and explicitly banning the video-slot games.
Industry supporters maintain that the machines were legalized by a 1995 measure aimed at legalizing children's arcade games that awarded small trinkets and prizes. That measure, dubbed the fuzzy animal exception, allowed such prizes for games of skill as long as they weren't cash and weren't worth more than $5 or 10 times the cost of a single play – whichever was less.
Industry lobbying and backroom legislative maneuvering killed bills backed by former Gov. George W. Bush in 1997 and 1999 that would've clearly declared the video slots illegal.
The Texas attorney general's office declared that the video slots are illegal even under the existing law because they are based solely on chance and violate the state's ban on casino gambling. Attorney General John Cornyn established an anti-gambling task force that has helped local authorities confiscate machines and win convictions against slot operators in 17 counties around the state.
Mr. Lockhart said Texarkana's slot operators left in the fall of 1999 after he visited each parlor that August to deliver a written warning that he and local police intended to enforce anti-gambling laws.
But some reopened just outside the city limits, and others began cropping up in the western part of the county. By January, when Sheriff Prince took office, at least 15 and possibly as many as 20 parlors were in business, and complaints were mounting about illegal gambling.
"I've had people complaining that family members have gotten addicted to the gambling and have gotten themselves in trouble financially," the sheriff said. "I've got a girl that went and did a lot of forgeries [in another county] in order to have a lot of money to gamble.
"I'm hearing many reports that they're paying cash," he said. "I had just a report this morning of someone winning over $1,000 in one night. That's a lot of money."
In late March, Mr. Lockhart prepared a new written warning to be delivered to the video-slot operators. Within weeks, he and the sheriff said, they was getting calls and letters from operators and Mr. Shell, the Burnet, Texas-based lawyer for the Texas Amusement Association.
Some operators began circulating petitions warning that closing the parlors could leave "60 or more persons" jobless, and one slot parlor owner came all the way from Columbia, S.C., to offer his services as an expert on the legality of the video machines.
"I told him, 'I can tell you right now, before we get through you're not going to agree with what I tell you,'" Mr. Lockhart said. "I think he left pretty disappointed."
Both he and the sheriff say they understand why the operators are concerned. The two men say they have heard reports of how lucrative some of the county's slot businesses are. "One of the people that's run these things on the west end of the county is making $50,000-$70,000 grand a month," Mr. Lockhart said.
The prosecutor and the sheriff say they believe the current law is clear, and they intend to enforce it. "I always tell people, if you'll sit down ... and read that thing for an hour, you know whether or not you can get by with it or not," Mr. Lockhart said.
Mr. Shell said he believes that the operators are following the law and deserve a nicer approach. "When a law is unclear, the police and the attorneys and the operators should all sit down, and let's talk through this, and get this clarified, wait until the Legislature does something."
He said he and his clients still hope for such a meeting in Bowie County. But he added that authorities' actions mirror the key steps that have won video-slot criminal convictions in the few Texas cases that he has defended and lost.
"The ones that we've lost is where they came by and warned the person, 'Shut down or this is going to happen,'" he said.
The Law as it Stands
A 1995 Texas law allows games of chance as long as they offer noncash prizes worth no more than $5, or 10 times the amount it costs to play, whichever is less. The law was to allow for the use of stuffed animals and other trinkets as prizes in children's arcade games.
Ambiguities in the law have led gambling machine operators to say their slots are legal because they don't award cash prizes. Instead, winners are supposed to get merchandise certificates. But the attorney general's office says such payouts are illegal – a game of chance that violates the state ban on casino gambling.
SOURCE:
The Dallas Morning News.
