S. Carolina machines not coming to Nevada

David Strow

Friday, June 30, 2000 | 11:02 a.m.

An estimated 22,000 video poker machines will be up for sale tonight as South Carolina pulls the plug on the state's once-booming video poker industry.

But don't look for those machines to start popping up in Nevada or New Jersey, says an official with slot machine giant International Game Technology.

By law, operators in the Palmetto State have just eight days to remove the machines from South Carolina or to destroy them. Most of those machines are now being sold by their operators into nearby states, such as West Virginia and North Carolina, said Jerry Young, director of public gaming with IGT. Machines are being sold primarily by individual owners and operators, he said.

The reason they're not moving into traditional gaming markets, Young said, is that the machines are "grey machines" -- video poker devices originally intended for amusement purposes, but that were later modified for gambling purposes. Though this modification was legal in South Carolina, it is also done in many markets where gambling is illegal.

These machines were primarily produced by manufacturers not licensed in Nevada or New Jersey, Young said, so the machines could not be re-sold in either state.

"IGT does not look to the removal of these machines as a business issue for us in the markets that are regulated, and where we sell machines today," Young said. "These machines will find their way into unregulated markets."

Some of those markets are fighting the influx -- North Carolina legislators are to ban amusement-only video poker machines.

Even if the machines were made by regulated operators, most are as much as 10 to 15 years old, and thereby incapable of communicating with modern slot machine accounting systems.

"If someone's opening up a new Strip casino, do they want to put in a 10-year-old machine?" said Dave Ehlers, chairman of Las Vegas Investment Advisors. "Hell, no. They want the hot stuff."