With the casino industry so entrenched in Missouri you wouldn’t think there was a market for black-market slots. You’d think wrongly. The Missouri Gaming Commission has received 84 complaints alleging 200 instances of rogue machines. Casinos aren’t the only ones irked. The state lottery is upset, as are some business owners. The Lottery believes it is out $50 million ticket sales from an underground industry that is believed to extend to 14,000 slots.
If you pull up at the Philips 66 gas station in Claycomb, you can play at any one of the four slot machine operating merrily there, in full defiance of state law. Among those scoffing at said law is Torch Electronics, which owns many of the filling stations where renegade slots are to be found. Torch has a lot of juice in Jefferson City, so that slots may well stay. “I am beyond fed up. I am, quite frankly, infuriated by the massive spread of these machines by companies like Torch.” So says Jim Turntine, who says sales of his billiard tables and juke boxes are being hurt by the market for outlaw slots.
Although the gaming commission has ruled that the machines in question are illegal “gambling devices,” it has outsourced enforcement to the highway patrol. The latter, in turn, says it was stripped of such authority by a court ruling 19 years ago. Nor are they a high-priority matter for district attorneys. Eyes are on a Platte County case where Integrity Gaming (the irony is overpowering) is being charged with having placed illegal slots in two convenience stores in Parkville. For its part, the Lottery would rather switch than fight, wanting the Lege to legalize the machines—provided that the Lottery gets to run them. Who said ethics aren’t fungible?
* Calder Casino‘s ability to decouple slots from racing was reaffirmed last week, even as breeders’ associations vowed to fight on. Calder, which is owned by Churchill Downs but run by The Stronach Group, has introduced jai alai as a substitute for horse racing. If breeders succeed in having the appellate court’s ruling overturned it will be a Pyrrhic victory: The grandstand and barns have already been demolished. It’s another setback for the beleaguered sport of kings.
* Skill-based slots’ success to date has been equivocal. Millennials don’t know they’re there and Baby Boomers don’t want to play them (or so contends this article). Also, the games offered are too new for the Boomers, too old for the younger crowd. Filling that generation gap may be critical to SBS’ future.
* Just what Atlantic City needs: a casino power outage. Worse still, it struck at 1 a.m. on a Sunday morning, when the revelry should have been at its height. Luckless Bally’s Atlantic City was affected, as were Borgata, Ocean Casino Resort and Resorts Casino Hotel and Harrah’s Resort. Slot players were the big winners, as the one-armed bandits operate on their own power supply and were unaffected by the blackout.
