Video gambling’s status uncertain as industry’s time winds down

Sunday, June 11, 2000 | 10:19 a.m.

The State Law Enforcement Division has made spot checks of 1,589 video gambling operations since May 31, when 21,000 video gambling licenses expired. Those checks found 171 operators had closed down. SLED agents turned off 414 machines, and 927 machines were voluntarily removed by the owners.

But SLED spokeswoman Kathryn Richardson said officials still don't know how those cases will be handled. The Revenue Department said about 10,000 licenses that expired May 31 were not renewed, but since not all applications have been processed it's sometimes impossible to tell which machines are operating legally.

To add to the confusion, few poker machines are owned by the establishments where they're played, said Revenue Department spokesman Danny Brazell.

Most are leased from a handful of distributors, and licenses can be moved from one machine to another. Brazell said that that's what video poker operators are doing - moving licenses to machines in more profitable locations as video gambling's time runs out.

In the shuffle, machines have been moved out of several Aiken and Edgefield poker businesses, from parlors to convenience stores, in the past two weeks.

The Legislature voted last summer to end video gambling on July 1 unless voters chose to keep the machines legal. Then in October, the state Supreme Court threw out only the referendum, leaving in place the July 1 ban.

SLED Chief Robert Stewart has said businesses will have to have their machines turned off at the stroke of midnight. They will have one week to take the machines out of the state.

Video gambling operators aren't going down without a fight. The state Supreme Court has agreed to hear a suit brought by operators against the state which says making the machines illegal constitutes an illegal taking of private property.

Some, including Rep. J. Roland Smith, R-Langley, say lawmakers need to be on the lookout, lest a provision to save video gambling gets slipped into the budget when lawmakers return June 20.

Video gambling was legalized in 1986 when then-Sen. Jack Lindsay, D-Marlboro, slipped a proviso into the budget bill.