Arkansas wrestles with illegal slot machines

Paisley Dodds

Monday, May 12, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Stiff from her long journey west, truck driver Marilyn Cottrell climbs out of her rig, gets change from the truck stop cashier and feeds a $10 bill into the "Cherry Master."

She presses a glowing button and the machine spins up a line of cherries, plums and lemons. Another row of assorted fruit sends her back to the cashier for more change.

A row of cherries will spit out $500 in tickets, redeemable for gas, honey buns and anything else she can buy at the truck stop.

"I'm hoping that I win so I can buy fuel and some eats. But really I just play so I can break up my drive," the 57-year-old Ohio trucker says.

What Cottrell doesn't know is that every time she tries for another row of cherries, she's stepping into a dispute over whether the machines are legal.

Arkansas is one of three states -- the others are Tennessee and Utah -- with tight anti-gambling laws that prohibit casino gambling, lotteries and other games of chance -- even bingo.

The only gambling specifically authorized in Arkansas is at dog- and horse-racing tracks in West Memphis and Hot Springs. A proposed constitutional amendment that would have allowed casino gambling in Hot Springs, if local voters approved, was rejected by a 3-to-2 margin last year.

Machine operators believe they've found a way around the law by offering only credit instead of cash.

However, even that flies in the face of the state constitution's definition of lotteries: a chance game that costs money to play and offers either a cash prize or credit.

"The Legislature at some point said there is a grouping of devices that are called amusement devices, but if you look at these things they are gambling devices," said Jim DePriest, an assistant attorney general.

"They are illegal. It's plain and simple. And the people who have the machines and the people who play the machines are technically breaking the law," he said.

But DePriest says that unless police departments view the games as a problem, it is unlikely that anything will ever be done.

"I would think the amount of money being spent would be a key thing," DePriest says.

Store owners agree.

"The biggest credit we've ever issued was for $980," says Patty Davidson, manager of a gas station in Fayetteville. "Yesterday, we did $115 worth of winnings. We deposit about anywhere from $3,500 to $5,000 a month. Most people buy electronics and cigarettes."

Anti-gambling activists say they are bad news.

"I'm totally against these things," says Gary Stevens, 36, a truck driver from San Antonio. "I've seen drivers drop $200 in these machines and walk away with nothing. It takes 1,000 miles on the road to make that."