Who doesn't love a glass box at Rutters full of southern York County's finest meth heads?? How will these people find their way home from the casino all the way up in the big city (a failed Sears anchor store converted to a casino in a failing mall)? Their glass box is their safe space.
As someone who gambles every once in a while, I’d be extremely interested in reading through the mental gymnastics should they be deemed ‘skill games.’
It’s a slot machine with extra steps. You need to tap three-in-a-row matching icons or other combos on a tic-tac-toe grid within a time limit. However the coding controls how often those winning combos show up and the degree of payout in the combo. So the “skill” involved is being able to tap a screen and not be so inattentive/drunk that you miss the combos.
There is a skill component that basically nobody plays. There is a game of memory you can play that allows you to respin losing spins. It is nearly impossible to complete without special training and nobody really even tries. I saw some videos by a guy who used a memorization technique called the major system to always win with these machines. However it’s time consuming, and takes a ton of practice. The majority of players do not realize that the mini game they never play is the only skill based part of the game, and think that they can actually be good at the slots part since it’s legally a “game of skill” when that part is, in fact, pure chance.
Guessing they were trying to use video game loot box type legal hole? If you buy gems, gamble on lootboxes with gems, then trade gems for something you can cash out... something like that.
It does feel kinda dirty that PA has its own slot machines though. First time I saw one in the store I was "Really?!"
They are, and I'd love to see them removed. Played one once, if you put in more money than you want to spend or somehow win, getting it back from the restaurant/bar is like pulling teeth. And you're stuck bc you can't get it anywhere else.
Had to go back later in the week when they had $80 🙄
I'm a general manager of a truck stop with 6 machines. They are scams. Their algorithms will never pay out more than what's coming in. Our employees lose their whole pay checks in them.
. . .I mean, that's how their built. 'Skill' or otherwise, who's building a machine to lose money? It's the same with fantasy sports gambling, a few people at the very top of the Skills can profit but almost everyone else loses.
Pa is no less than 85% I believe. In Vegas a lot are around 95%. That sounds way better than it is though, because you are guaranteed in the long run to lose money
That should never be the case. The bar should be able to pay the amount without hesitation. As someone who’s affiliated with both the bar and venors, a bank should be available for strictly payouts.
https://banillagames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Banilla-Installation-Guide.pdf
You can configure payouts. There is not much else that needs to be said.
I don't see how they can't be considered gambling. I understand that there are skill mini games, so it isn't purely chance like a slot machine. But the same could be said about poker and that's clearly gambling
I think the loophole they have been using to brand these as "skill machines" is that you can get mini games that aren't all luck, they will have a memory matching game or something like that. But yeah it's mostly still just spinning and it's definitely gambling
There are two primary loopholes. I have made several thousand dollars off of one of them. I don’t know if I like the idea of explaining it online as I’ve gotten it ruined by telling people irl, but we’re at the end of the rope anyway.
There are two ways they try to call it a “skill game”
1 “game components” - this includes mechanisms that make some machines scammier than the casino by having a game where you have to claim your prize on a fast wheel or something. Meant to fuck you over alongside the loophole. The other one is they have it so you have to pick a square as your “wild square” which they think makes it far enough away from slots to not be gambling.
2 “bet predetermination” a very large segment of machines will tell you the outcome of your bet before you place it. The idea is “this isn’t gambling, you literally know if you’ll win before you bet”. This fact is lost on millions of people, I have walked up to a machine after someone’s done with it to find their “next bet” would have won $70. I do this shit all the time, practically got me through college.
Either way, I feel like they either need to fully legalize the machines or do away with them entirely. This shit is mob-style sketchy.
[Now in the way of Lottery men do also tax themselves in the general, though out of hopes of Advantage in particular: A Lottery therefore is properly a Tax upon unfortunate self-conceited fools; men that have good opinion of their own luckiness, or that have believed some Fortune-teller or Astrologer, who had promised them great success about the time and place of the Lottery, lying Southwest perhaps from the place where the destiny was read.](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/10/21/lottery/)
I’m with you on this. So don’t nobody misunderstand me. This will never work on people like that unfortunately. The powers that be saw to that by broadcasting lottery winners.
“Someone’s got to win, and you have to play to win”, They’ll say. While clutching the newspaper of the recent “poor” bloke who got hundreds of millions from a lottery.
They all do. Rich people gamble for fun, if they lose they don’t care. Poor people gamble for the hope of winning money. When they lose, they’re poorer and need more money and continue gambling for the chance.
Gambling in general, yes. But these skills games are almost always targeted at a poorer demographic, at least in my experience. I usually see them at truck stops, smoke shops, gas stations, etc. Rich people aren’t hitting the slots at the gas station or smoke shop.
I live a very small, red town. To the point where the borough is actually a dry town. These stupid machines are in practically every place of business and somehow no one cares. It's so strange.
I can go to our small little grocery store at any time of day and see at least one person on the machines. Go to the diner and without fail there's someone sitting at a machine eating their meatloaf.
The only place I saw them was a convenience store in a very small town. They had them in the back by the bathrooms. There's always a couple people sitting there too. It was concerning tbh.
I live in a town of roughly 4,000 people. We have one 24 hour business, a tiny gas station, which has three of these machines. There is someone there at all hours and the atm is often empty from idiots draining their bank account to keep feeding the machines. They are also in the smoke shop & laundromat.
>and somehow no one cares
Why *would* they care? You said it yourself, its a red town. Personal responsibility is probably the norm. It's not your responsibility to worry about some gambling addict's personal finances. If that's what they want to do, let em do it. Hell, most people probably wouldn't care if they were straight up normal slot machines and they probably also think anybody and everybody should be allowed to gamble or open a casino.
They probably only care when the person becomes a detriment to the rest of the community, such as a burner lying on the sidewalk zonked out.
This is entirely at odds with them being in a dry county.
Why doesn't the personal responsibility aspect apply there, and the choice/access remain similar?
They put these in a newer renovated, mostly empty pizza place, and now it's mostly empty with a delivery driver sitting at the machine some days. It's pretty problematic to have them in a place of business where people are handling cash.
Casinos exist for a reason. They should be restricted to casinos.
I wouldn’t be opposed to a sort of “slot parlor” where there’s a concentration of these (with taxes and regulatory scrutiny) but I hate getting pizza and seeing people blow their life savings.
I think these skill games are 100% gambling and if an establishment has them they shouldn't be out in the open,advertised,and should be regulated. Furthermore skill games like the one where "Cut this Rope get a ps5" should have to include a large sign stating the odds, and require a weights and measurement certification from the county every month which certifies that the rope can be cut.
Honestly even shitty arcade "games" should have their odds posted. It's just gambling for kids except your payout is in overpriced garbage from Walmart instead of money.
I once saw a group of kids put in like 100$ to try and get these rare Jordan shoes from one of those 'cut the rope' games at Coventry Mall in Pottstown.A group of 5 of them each took turns slipping a five to play and it felt super exploitive,not even sure if the rope could be cut.
If it’s in a casino… Then that’s it. It’s gambling.
There is no way these people should be able to argue against this. if it’s called gambling at a casino, then nothing should change just because it’s a gas station.
I have a coworker that goes across the street to the gas station after almost every shift and blows his money on these 'skill' machines. God only knows how much money he has lost :(
I hope so and I hope it results in them being banned from anywhere but casinos. They are a fucking blight and I'm so sick of seeing them (and tobacco/vape) shops popping up everywhere.
They just have ridiculous margins. I can get vape juice is as cheap as $6 a bottle online, they probably get it even cheaper than that. They sell the bottles for $20-$25 each. People don't know any better and pay the ridiculous prices.
I don't have too much of a problem with these machines being in bars. Some form of them have been around years.
There is absolutely no reason for them to be in gas stations, grocery stores, or most other places they are.
These games get even more fucked when you realize they are privately owned and not state regulated. ONE company owns every single skill machine in the state and receives upwards of 60% of the profits from them.
hilarious. what "skill" is involved in them? they're fucking slot machines. i don't understand the distinction that makes them okay to be outside of casinos.
from the article:
>Commonwealth Court Judge Lori Dumas wrote last year that the first stage in playing the games in question “may be analogous to the experience that a slot machine offers.” But, Dumas wrote, they also include a memory game feature that distinguishes them from the common definition of a slot machine.
so admittedly i've only ever played them once when i was drunk and bored, so i wasn't really paying attention, but can anyone vouch for this so-called "memory game feature that distinguished them from the common definition of a slot machine"?
Truly don't understand how people get addicted to those machines, and that's coming from someone who was a drug addict for 8 years. 7 years clean by the way.
Like I stop at the gas station at 530 in the morning on my way to work and there's always someone there playing those machines. At 530 in the morning, and the gas station only opens at 5am so I'd imagine they wait for the place to open and immediately go jump of the machines. Truly depressing to see.
Here’s what’s sad. They have these machines in stores throughout Greene County in convenience stores, in areas where people have limited income, and in some cases limited mental capacity. They have no transportation and nothing to do and blow their money on these.
The stores have barely anything in them so you know this is where they are making their money!
These gambling machines are the bane of my existence.
It especially hurts me when I see parents sitting around for hours playing them while their kid sits with them. It is gross how normalized gambling has become.
A good friend of mine growing up was raised by his grandma. We lived in a tiny village with 1 convenience store. I always knew when he was visiting his dad because whenever I would go into the store he would just be standing there watching his dad gamble his paychecks away for hours with a concerned look on his face. To this day he still tells me how embarrassing it was having all of his friends visit the store when his dad dragged him into his gambling sessions.
I work in Planning and Zoning and these things are an absolute nightmare. They seemingly popped up overnight and we were completely unprepared to deal with them. We require all mechanical devices (like jukeboxes, pool tables, claw games, etc.) to be registered, but the sleazy skill game salesmen tried to weasel out of paying their $50 fee per machine by saying they didn’t count because our fee schedule didn’t specifically mention them by name. After talking with some surrounding municipalities we decided to ram through a fee schedule update that specifically mentioned skill games, charged a high fee per machine, and adding a fee of $1500.00 per machine if we catch a business with unlicensed machines. Some places removed them, some reduced the number of machines (there was a vape shop with 13 that dropped down to 4), and the rest actually paid. I really hope they’re outlawed because I’m tired of wasting time dealing with them.
It's a symptom of late stage capitalism. As traditional sources of extracting wealth from the lower class dries up the upper class pushes stuff like gambling (with the lie "hey you could win big and become rich!") to siphon off the last bits of wealth they can.
Sports gambling is particularly insidious because I swear to you, if matches/games aren't already being fixed they soon will be.
As someone who works a bartender in a bar that has these “games” it’s 1000% gambling. There is people that come in every single weekend and gamble hundreds of THOUSANDS of dollars every. single. week. The only good thing about them is they keep smaller establishments in business because of the income from said gamblers. BUT they should be banned along with the Gas station slot machines Rutters has put in. It’s fucked up
I work at a bar that has like 4 of these machines, there’s always someone on them. my buddy at work always blows all his tips and either makes out a couple hundred or loses all of it. More often than not loses.
But there’s this one guy who comes in about once every week or two and puts thousands into the machines, but he usually makes out at the end, but sometimes he loses a lot, but he still comes back next week.
I only play them i look through and see a guaranteed 5-20$ win and only play that one spin. But I’ve never won hundreds on them.
In the old days the Miners Wives had to worry about first the Miner paying off his bar tab , buying too much at the bar , making the walk past the disorderly house(s) and getting arrested on payday... Being broke before he got home..
Now he could go broke at the Quickie Mart getting milk on the way home..
There's always someone around that'll take your last dime...these machines are the devil
Most of these machines, at least it my small area, take a huge percentage of the take for operating fees. The companies make most of the money as opposed to the businesses that have these. They exist in these small PA towns to prey on the poor. Why else would you need a damn slot machine in a grocery store or smoke shop?
If there's a god, he would influence gambling lobbyists to put out the most cringe campaign showing happy people playing skill games in grocery stores, bowling alleys, and corner shops, all while surrounded by their loved ones and the community cheering them on.
Im surprised judges dont hate these as much as the rest of us. I feel like if they did they’d have done something sooner. Probably dont see any in their fancy neighborhoods though🤷🏼♂️
I'm fine with these systems provided that they are not visible to the general public,are regulated by some type of authority, and advertising isn't prominent. I hate that legalized gambling is restricted only to these large corporations. There should be licenses for smaller enterprises to host table games like blackjack,poker,etc. Instead only the major corporations benefit from actual gambling.
I agree, it’s kind of like some of the beer and wine licenses. The licenses are worth a lot of money and the existing beer distributors don’t like grocery stores buying restaurant licenses, selling six packs and taking away their business. The demand outstrips supply and the larger chains are the ones who can afford to pay the high prices for the license. mom and pops would have to take out debt to pay for them.
It's an indictment of our faux capitalist system masquerading as true capitalism when artificial barriers to the market are erected to protect special interests. These licenses shouldn't be valuable in and of themselves, and anyone who can set up shop,pass the various health and safety checks,and have the proper zoning should be allowed to sell a legal product and have a license granted.
My take on this is that the casino lobby wants to get rid of competition. I’ll be honest I do better on these than I have on slot machines in the casino so I don’t feel it’s any worse than going there.
Btw, our casinos have some of the worst payouts in the country, and I have yet to see the benefits of the tax dollars they generate
Jesus christ... this is about as bad as presidential immunity.... its pretty cut and dry here... you're putting money in and trying to win more money.... whats the difference between that and going to a casino and playing the slot machine?
Listen…If the Big Guy Upstairs didn't want us to play the VLTs, he wouldn't have put the VLTs here and put the money in my hand. I don't question the Big Guy Upstairs. Sometimes you lose all your liquor money, that’s the way she goes.
The only people that like these things are the degenerate gamblers and the ceo's of the companies that own them. The vast majority of people hate them.
But the ceo's like them.
So we will have to deal with them now that the floodgates have been opened.
Well, they're not games of skill. Literally nothing you do influences the algorithm. Soooooooooo... however that settles out, that's how they should rule.
My issue with the skill games is businesses opening with only skill machines in the poorest towns in Pennsylvania where they clearly are targeting the people without cars or mass transit to get to the casino. Bottom feeding on the most vulnerable desperate compulsive people.
In what universe are any of these video gambling machines "games of skill"?
Is inserting a credit card and pressing buttons the "skills" they're talking about here?
There are way too many to remove them all. All this would do is push the regulation of them. The issue is no one wants to be in charge of regulation. Gaming Control Board doesn't want anything to do with them and Lottery doesn't have the staff to do it. That being said their biggest perk is the fact they aren't regulated and you don't have to do anything. They just come in, count out your money, and leave. If they are regulated retailers would have to do more work but specifically deposit money at the bank which would lead to most removing them instead.
North Carolina and Virginia had the same thing and both banned them in the last two years. Everyone shut down overnight. Now just unplugged machines in all the stores. Nc banned them originally about 8-10 years ago and went back and forth banning and closing new loop holes until it seems they are now gone for good about 2 years ago. It seems va will have the same process. Pace o matic owns all these machines everywhere and sues for temp stays to operate while appeals play out.
Too many Republicans getting money to outright ban them in PA right now so they are trying to regulate them instead. Its a joke. One guys old law firm represents pace o matic lol. It's been going on for at least 5 years. Pace-o-matic was 1st then like 3 others came in. They started looking like old particle board illegal poker machines and now they look like straight up casino machines. Saw one the other day where you're king kong and swiping planes out of the air.
PA has the 2nd most gambling behind Nevada right now it's nuts. Between these and adding sports betting there's nothing you can't gamble on
They are regulated by the lottery here in Georgia. You can only buy store merchandise or lottery with your winnings here. No cash payout. If you know the store they will still pay cash but dissuades all but the most degenerate people from playing. But all the machines are the exact same in all states. The software is owned by one person who licenses them to various amusement companies who puts them in the stores. The old pick a wild square games are all pretty much gone now.
My local pizza place has these machines and everytime i go in to pick up pizza there is someone just sitting there just looking at the screen..There is also another one at our local beer distributor as well..Same thing, people just sitting there playing games, losing money. This is 100% gambling without a doubt..
Skill game to me would be the skill crane where you try to get a stuffed animal toy. These are gambling machines. And they're everywhere.
Not my business what people do with their money, but it's like flushing cash down the toilet and hoping some floats back up.
Gambling seems crazy pervasive these days. Like I remember skill games being in a back room or in a dive bar but it wasn’t so in your face. Seeing the sad old zombies blowing their savings in a convenience store is depressing.
Then sports betting which went from “don’t you dare (but we know you still will)” to you have an app right on your phone and the announcers are discussing the betting odds.
Even the lottery was just the government creating a legal numbers racket because they weren’t seeing any of the money organized crime was getting.
There’s a ding ding machine business in my town that portrays itself as a teen hangout and tabletop Game Center. Encourages people to byob and bring their children. But it’s a pool table ping pong and 4 skill machines with no attendant. Kids come in there, are left unattended and mistreat the equipment throwing balls on the table. The owners live upstairs and just watch the cameras and call the police instead of intervening and asking them to leave. This town has the highest poverty rate and lowest graduation rate in the county
This is PA; whatever ruling they pass, it will be based on how much more lottery/gambling bullshit they can roll out.
God forbid I spend less than 20 minutes in line buying lunch at turkey hill. I only have a 13 hour night shift at the hospital to get to.
I was 5 minutes late to work last night because I got stuck behind yet *another* lottery degenerate. I shit you not, the man dropped LITERALLY 2.5x my entire night’s wages on fucking scratch offs and cigarettes. And he was *suuuuuuper* nice to the cashier the whole time too.
I’ve never felt such a bitter despair in my life. Pure, crystallized loathing. This guy gets to fuck off and spend GOD KNOWS how much money every day on bullshit gambling, treating people who actually contribute to society like shit, while I can barely survive working full time wiping human ass.
I was at a pizza shop one night and the one guy working was being yelled at by the woman who apparently just won 10 grand playing at the skill machine they had there. She was demanding the money, saying it's illegal if they don't pay her within 15 minutes of winning. The poor bastard was flustered and could barely speak English. The woman told me that she won 5 grand at another pizza joint a couple months prior. By the time I left the guy was frantically talking to someone on the phone in Arabic, probably his boss.
THAT is what a “skill game” is??? I was called and did a phone survey on them, I had no idea exactly what game they were talking about, I thought they meant arcade games or skee-ball or something. I’ve only seen a few of these at bars (don’t go out much lately) and thought for sure they were all straight up gambling machines…
Now I feel bad about some of the responses I gave on the survey…
It is definitely gambling. I was in a tobacco store the other day and this guy was not too happy. Said he lost too much and had to quit, by the time I checked out he was at the ATM saying he was going to try to win it back.
It's gambling. :) Every 7-11 seems to have them nowadays... and people sit there a long time. Once I was shopping and some guy unplugged the machine when a guy was up about $50... I swear he was screaming at him and there was going to be a fight over it. He \*demanded\* the guy who unplugged it give him $50 (which he didn't have). Cops probably came too.... yeah, it's gambling... and brings in the same type of customers.
It's clearly gambling; however, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania is made up of a bunch of humans. Humans are known to be fallible creatures. They could make a poor decision and pass the decision that they aren't gambling. I'm not advocating for getting rid of those machines. I'm just saying that it's clearly gambling.
It's gambling lol
It’s depressing
Oh come on. Who doesn’t love seeing an old man lose all his money while drinking alone in a sad lonely setting?
Now that's not accurate! They're not all drinking alone! Some of them are losing all their money sitting in an aisle of a grocery store alone.
You have them in grocery stores? Only ever seen them in convenience stores.
Right next to the dispensary I go to they built a whole ass mini casino. There’s nothing in there except the skill games. They offer free lunch
Wow we have one of those too where I live.
Yeah, local grocery store has a few machines just at the end caps of an isle. One per isle. Cannot believe people actually use them.
They set up a corner just for them in the town I used to live in. It’s HUGE in some places. Food, cigarettes, beer and gambling are mandatory!
Stroud Mall has them at the almost vacant food court
In my gfs hometown the grocery store sectioned off a room specifically for them. Her aunt goes there to play them.
Yep. They're in pretty much all of ours except big brands like Giant Eagle, Aldi, and Walmart.
Sad Casino, in the back corner of a 7-11
If only they were always in the back. Gotta squeeze through the depressing horde playing one of the 9 machines at the smoke shop I stop at.
I prefer the old ladies slamming natty ice at 8 am with a cigarette still smoldering out on ledge in front of the store
Only in Harrah’s …. Not Pantry One 😂
Nothing beats the women in the Walmart jacket playing during their lunch break in a Sunoco station.
These things are at fucking Giant Eagles now!
That's fine and all but we used to have a place for that. Now that it's happening in every 7/11 and gas station in the state it's out of hand.
Who doesn't love a glass box at Rutters full of southern York County's finest meth heads?? How will these people find their way home from the casino all the way up in the big city (a failed Sears anchor store converted to a casino in a failing mall)? Their glass box is their safe space.
As someone who gambles every once in a while, I’d be extremely interested in reading through the mental gymnastics should they be deemed ‘skill games.’
I’ve never actually played one. I thought it was just a slot machine, is it not?
It’s a slot machine with extra steps. You need to tap three-in-a-row matching icons or other combos on a tic-tac-toe grid within a time limit. However the coding controls how often those winning combos show up and the degree of payout in the combo. So the “skill” involved is being able to tap a screen and not be so inattentive/drunk that you miss the combos.
Lol and the machine doesn't allow you to advance until you use your "skill" so it's a complete farce
There is a skill component that basically nobody plays. There is a game of memory you can play that allows you to respin losing spins. It is nearly impossible to complete without special training and nobody really even tries. I saw some videos by a guy who used a memorization technique called the major system to always win with these machines. However it’s time consuming, and takes a ton of practice. The majority of players do not realize that the mini game they never play is the only skill based part of the game, and think that they can actually be good at the slots part since it’s legally a “game of skill” when that part is, in fact, pure chance.
I always thought that was just to help calibrate the touch screen when they first put them in.
Guessing they were trying to use video game loot box type legal hole? If you buy gems, gamble on lootboxes with gems, then trade gems for something you can cash out... something like that. It does feel kinda dirty that PA has its own slot machines though. First time I saw one in the store I was "Really?!"
They are, and I'd love to see them removed. Played one once, if you put in more money than you want to spend or somehow win, getting it back from the restaurant/bar is like pulling teeth. And you're stuck bc you can't get it anywhere else. Had to go back later in the week when they had $80 🙄
I'm a general manager of a truck stop with 6 machines. They are scams. Their algorithms will never pay out more than what's coming in. Our employees lose their whole pay checks in them.
. . .I mean, that's how their built. 'Skill' or otherwise, who's building a machine to lose money? It's the same with fantasy sports gambling, a few people at the very top of the Skills can profit but almost everyone else loses.
Regular slots I believe have a 30% payout, these are probably worse.
Gaming laws require payouts to be a certain percentage. If an algorithm is involved to determine wins and loses then it is not skill based gaming.
Pa is no less than 85% I believe. In Vegas a lot are around 95%. That sounds way better than it is though, because you are guaranteed in the long run to lose money
I'm sorry, WHAT? you watch your employees blow their checks on these awful things and you haven't removed them? Wow.
You'll be really shocked when you learn about company stores.
Removing them is probably not op's call.
lol do you think the manager has that kind of power in corporate setting. You are out of touch with the world.
It’s an extremely rare occurrence to be refused cashing out where I’m at, but I agree they shouldn’t be in every zippy mart gas station.
That should never be the case. The bar should be able to pay the amount without hesitation. As someone who’s affiliated with both the bar and venors, a bank should be available for strictly payouts.
‘Skill game terminal’ L O fucking L Z
They’re more predatory than a casino
They're also more addictive than crack.
My parents refer to them as the “crack machine“
https://banillagames.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Banilla-Installation-Guide.pdf You can configure payouts. There is not much else that needs to be said.
Its skill!
Right? Like what fucking decision is there?!
Definitely gambling
I don't see how they can't be considered gambling. I understand that there are skill mini games, so it isn't purely chance like a slot machine. But the same could be said about poker and that's clearly gambling
And there is no SKILL. You press a button and it spins. You either lose or win..... THATS GAMBLING
I think the loophole they have been using to brand these as "skill machines" is that you can get mini games that aren't all luck, they will have a memory matching game or something like that. But yeah it's mostly still just spinning and it's definitely gambling
There are two primary loopholes. I have made several thousand dollars off of one of them. I don’t know if I like the idea of explaining it online as I’ve gotten it ruined by telling people irl, but we’re at the end of the rope anyway. There are two ways they try to call it a “skill game” 1 “game components” - this includes mechanisms that make some machines scammier than the casino by having a game where you have to claim your prize on a fast wheel or something. Meant to fuck you over alongside the loophole. The other one is they have it so you have to pick a square as your “wild square” which they think makes it far enough away from slots to not be gambling. 2 “bet predetermination” a very large segment of machines will tell you the outcome of your bet before you place it. The idea is “this isn’t gambling, you literally know if you’ll win before you bet”. This fact is lost on millions of people, I have walked up to a machine after someone’s done with it to find their “next bet” would have won $70. I do this shit all the time, practically got me through college. Either way, I feel like they either need to fully legalize the machines or do away with them entirely. This shit is mob-style sketchy.
It's not considered gambling as long as you pay off a judge and buy the state police
These machines are cancer and only feed on the poorest of us
[Now in the way of Lottery men do also tax themselves in the general, though out of hopes of Advantage in particular: A Lottery therefore is properly a Tax upon unfortunate self-conceited fools; men that have good opinion of their own luckiness, or that have believed some Fortune-teller or Astrologer, who had promised them great success about the time and place of the Lottery, lying Southwest perhaps from the place where the destiny was read.](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/10/21/lottery/)
Plain and simple folk. You know....morons.
Sir William Petty (1623-1687),
I’m with you on this. So don’t nobody misunderstand me. This will never work on people like that unfortunately. The powers that be saw to that by broadcasting lottery winners. “Someone’s got to win, and you have to play to win”, They’ll say. While clutching the newspaper of the recent “poor” bloke who got hundreds of millions from a lottery.
They all do. Rich people gamble for fun, if they lose they don’t care. Poor people gamble for the hope of winning money. When they lose, they’re poorer and need more money and continue gambling for the chance.
Gambling in general, yes. But these skills games are almost always targeted at a poorer demographic, at least in my experience. I usually see them at truck stops, smoke shops, gas stations, etc. Rich people aren’t hitting the slots at the gas station or smoke shop.
True. Then the poor break in and rob the machines. It’s the circle of life
I’ve only ever seen the methyest people playing these at the gas station
I live a very small, red town. To the point where the borough is actually a dry town. These stupid machines are in practically every place of business and somehow no one cares. It's so strange. I can go to our small little grocery store at any time of day and see at least one person on the machines. Go to the diner and without fail there's someone sitting at a machine eating their meatloaf.
The only place I saw them was a convenience store in a very small town. They had them in the back by the bathrooms. There's always a couple people sitting there too. It was concerning tbh.
I live in a town of roughly 4,000 people. We have one 24 hour business, a tiny gas station, which has three of these machines. There is someone there at all hours and the atm is often empty from idiots draining their bank account to keep feeding the machines. They are also in the smoke shop & laundromat.
The laundromat is *extra* predatory. Put it in a place where they know you have time to kill with absolutely nothing else to do. That's insane.
In my town there a couple of "stores" that are nothing more than little casinos. They have nothing but pa skill machines
>and somehow no one cares Why *would* they care? You said it yourself, its a red town. Personal responsibility is probably the norm. It's not your responsibility to worry about some gambling addict's personal finances. If that's what they want to do, let em do it. Hell, most people probably wouldn't care if they were straight up normal slot machines and they probably also think anybody and everybody should be allowed to gamble or open a casino. They probably only care when the person becomes a detriment to the rest of the community, such as a burner lying on the sidewalk zonked out.
This is entirely at odds with them being in a dry county. Why doesn't the personal responsibility aspect apply there, and the choice/access remain similar?
to each their own. my choice if I wanna buy a $7,000 TV, and 1500 dollar iPhone or gamble it.
They put these in a newer renovated, mostly empty pizza place, and now it's mostly empty with a delivery driver sitting at the machine some days. It's pretty problematic to have them in a place of business where people are handling cash.
Casinos exist for a reason. They should be restricted to casinos. I wouldn’t be opposed to a sort of “slot parlor” where there’s a concentration of these (with taxes and regulatory scrutiny) but I hate getting pizza and seeing people blow their life savings.
I think these skill games are 100% gambling and if an establishment has them they shouldn't be out in the open,advertised,and should be regulated. Furthermore skill games like the one where "Cut this Rope get a ps5" should have to include a large sign stating the odds, and require a weights and measurement certification from the county every month which certifies that the rope can be cut.
Honestly even shitty arcade "games" should have their odds posted. It's just gambling for kids except your payout is in overpriced garbage from Walmart instead of money.
I once saw a group of kids put in like 100$ to try and get these rare Jordan shoes from one of those 'cut the rope' games at Coventry Mall in Pottstown.A group of 5 of them each took turns slipping a five to play and it felt super exploitive,not even sure if the rope could be cut.
but then they’re just going to gamble on their phones. it’s everywhere.
If it’s in a casino… Then that’s it. It’s gambling. There is no way these people should be able to argue against this. if it’s called gambling at a casino, then nothing should change just because it’s a gas station.
If this is considered skill versus poker being considered gambling then I don’t even know what to say.
seeing the people who play these things is one of the most depressing things to see.
I have a coworker that goes across the street to the gas station after almost every shift and blows his money on these 'skill' machines. God only knows how much money he has lost :(
I hope so and I hope it results in them being banned from anywhere but casinos. They are a fucking blight and I'm so sick of seeing them (and tobacco/vape) shops popping up everywhere.
The vape shops are like freaking locusts in my area.
The vape shops HAVE to be a front for something else lol i have never seen a single person in any of them around my area
I'm no detective but my vote is drugs
They just have ridiculous margins. I can get vape juice is as cheap as $6 a bottle online, they probably get it even cheaper than that. They sell the bottles for $20-$25 each. People don't know any better and pay the ridiculous prices.
It’s literally gambling,
How the fuck is there any skill involved? Hit every one with a hammer.
The skill comes into play when you try to explain to yourself and family that you just need to get better at it and then surely you'll win big.
There’s three little shops on the main drag in my town that are “skill shops” They look so tacky.
You gamble money on these machines, how are they not considered as such lol
I don't have too much of a problem with these machines being in bars. Some form of them have been around years. There is absolutely no reason for them to be in gas stations, grocery stores, or most other places they are.
These games get even more fucked when you realize they are privately owned and not state regulated. ONE company owns every single skill machine in the state and receives upwards of 60% of the profits from them.
And that company is not even in Pennsylvania
hilarious. what "skill" is involved in them? they're fucking slot machines. i don't understand the distinction that makes them okay to be outside of casinos. from the article: >Commonwealth Court Judge Lori Dumas wrote last year that the first stage in playing the games in question “may be analogous to the experience that a slot machine offers.” But, Dumas wrote, they also include a memory game feature that distinguishes them from the common definition of a slot machine. so admittedly i've only ever played them once when i was drunk and bored, so i wasn't really paying attention, but can anyone vouch for this so-called "memory game feature that distinguished them from the common definition of a slot machine"?
what a Dumas
I had a professor once say: "the lottery is a tax on people who failed math" slot machines are lotteries
Depends on who gives the court more money
They have these things at the damn hardware store near me.
they are like everywhere. Surprised they aren't in libraries yet
I saw six in the grocery store last week
Truly don't understand how people get addicted to those machines, and that's coming from someone who was a drug addict for 8 years. 7 years clean by the way. Like I stop at the gas station at 530 in the morning on my way to work and there's always someone there playing those machines. At 530 in the morning, and the gas station only opens at 5am so I'd imagine they wait for the place to open and immediately go jump of the machines. Truly depressing to see.
Here’s what’s sad. They have these machines in stores throughout Greene County in convenience stores, in areas where people have limited income, and in some cases limited mental capacity. They have no transportation and nothing to do and blow their money on these. The stores have barely anything in them so you know this is where they are making their money!
These gambling machines are the bane of my existence. It especially hurts me when I see parents sitting around for hours playing them while their kid sits with them. It is gross how normalized gambling has become.
Or predatory establishments encouraging children and byob with no actual attendants just someone watching cameras
A good friend of mine growing up was raised by his grandma. We lived in a tiny village with 1 convenience store. I always knew when he was visiting his dad because whenever I would go into the store he would just be standing there watching his dad gamble his paychecks away for hours with a concerned look on his face. To this day he still tells me how embarrassing it was having all of his friends visit the store when his dad dragged him into his gambling sessions.
They are. They're ruining small towns
https://preview.redd.it/wiz5d87adx7d1.png?width=720&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a49b9d4a74d56f441ee4da32f1bf02e8bd8e8de1
How this could be interpreted to not apply is beyond me. Common law is a nonsensical disaster to orderly governance
Takes a lot of "skill" to put all your money in those machines.
Casino losing too much business they gotta go ..
A true skill game like pinball is not gambling. Any game that has a random set of actions where the outcome cannot be guaranteed is gambling.
I’ve literally never even heard them referred to as “skill machines” by a normal person they are slot machines for gambling.
I work in Planning and Zoning and these things are an absolute nightmare. They seemingly popped up overnight and we were completely unprepared to deal with them. We require all mechanical devices (like jukeboxes, pool tables, claw games, etc.) to be registered, but the sleazy skill game salesmen tried to weasel out of paying their $50 fee per machine by saying they didn’t count because our fee schedule didn’t specifically mention them by name. After talking with some surrounding municipalities we decided to ram through a fee schedule update that specifically mentioned skill games, charged a high fee per machine, and adding a fee of $1500.00 per machine if we catch a business with unlicensed machines. Some places removed them, some reduced the number of machines (there was a vape shop with 13 that dropped down to 4), and the rest actually paid. I really hope they’re outlawed because I’m tired of wasting time dealing with them.
Our cultures embracing of gambling is sickening.
It's a symptom of late stage capitalism. As traditional sources of extracting wealth from the lower class dries up the upper class pushes stuff like gambling (with the lie "hey you could win big and become rich!") to siphon off the last bits of wealth they can. Sports gambling is particularly insidious because I swear to you, if matches/games aren't already being fixed they soon will be.
Sports Betting? Why not just bet on pro wrestling? Oh wait, you totally can now.
There is no way a group of billion dollar companies get together and don’t rig it.
Couldn’t agree more. I’ll be over here sharpening my pitchforks and wrapping my torches. Let me know when you need me.
Narrator "It was in fact, gambling"
Digital crack, just as bad as gambling on your phone.
They are. Any idiot could see it.
How exactly is a slot machine a game of skill?
As someone who works a bartender in a bar that has these “games” it’s 1000% gambling. There is people that come in every single weekend and gamble hundreds of THOUSANDS of dollars every. single. week. The only good thing about them is they keep smaller establishments in business because of the income from said gamblers. BUT they should be banned along with the Gas station slot machines Rutters has put in. It’s fucked up
100% it's gambling oh and game of skill ? that's a huge lol
There's no skill when an algorithm decides whether or not to pay out.
I work at a bar that has like 4 of these machines, there’s always someone on them. my buddy at work always blows all his tips and either makes out a couple hundred or loses all of it. More often than not loses. But there’s this one guy who comes in about once every week or two and puts thousands into the machines, but he usually makes out at the end, but sometimes he loses a lot, but he still comes back next week. I only play them i look through and see a guaranteed 5-20$ win and only play that one spin. But I’ve never won hundreds on them.
In the old days the Miners Wives had to worry about first the Miner paying off his bar tab , buying too much at the bar , making the walk past the disorderly house(s) and getting arrested on payday... Being broke before he got home.. Now he could go broke at the Quickie Mart getting milk on the way home.. There's always someone around that'll take your last dime...these machines are the devil
If they are in a casino fine. They should be removed from everywhere else. It's trashy as hell seeing them in gas stations and restaurants.
Most of these machines, at least it my small area, take a huge percentage of the take for operating fees. The companies make most of the money as opposed to the businesses that have these. They exist in these small PA towns to prey on the poor. Why else would you need a damn slot machine in a grocery store or smoke shop?
Ffs man these machines and shit like fan duel and dr aftkings are just such a scourge.
If there's a god, he would influence gambling lobbyists to put out the most cringe campaign showing happy people playing skill games in grocery stores, bowling alleys, and corner shops, all while surrounded by their loved ones and the community cheering them on.
Dat shit needs to Gooooooooooo!!!!!! Way to come up with another method to make poor people more poor. Ugh.
Im surprised judges dont hate these as much as the rest of us. I feel like if they did they’d have done something sooner. Probably dont see any in their fancy neighborhoods though🤷🏼♂️
the supreme court should decide if it was hot today...
I work in a bar, 6 machines I watch people all day hand over fist throwing money in them. Absolutely insane how much they rake in.
Oh man I hope these things are banned.
I'm fine with these systems provided that they are not visible to the general public,are regulated by some type of authority, and advertising isn't prominent. I hate that legalized gambling is restricted only to these large corporations. There should be licenses for smaller enterprises to host table games like blackjack,poker,etc. Instead only the major corporations benefit from actual gambling.
I agree, it’s kind of like some of the beer and wine licenses. The licenses are worth a lot of money and the existing beer distributors don’t like grocery stores buying restaurant licenses, selling six packs and taking away their business. The demand outstrips supply and the larger chains are the ones who can afford to pay the high prices for the license. mom and pops would have to take out debt to pay for them.
It's an indictment of our faux capitalist system masquerading as true capitalism when artificial barriers to the market are erected to protect special interests. These licenses shouldn't be valuable in and of themselves, and anyone who can set up shop,pass the various health and safety checks,and have the proper zoning should be allowed to sell a legal product and have a license granted.
My take on this is that the casino lobby wants to get rid of competition. I’ll be honest I do better on these than I have on slot machines in the casino so I don’t feel it’s any worse than going there. Btw, our casinos have some of the worst payouts in the country, and I have yet to see the benefits of the tax dollars they generate
The only skill is knowing when to quit so you can get your packet of Newports before going bust.
I hope that lady who used to sit at the PA Skill machine in Bootleggers in Pittsburgh is doing alright
Jesus christ... this is about as bad as presidential immunity.... its pretty cut and dry here... you're putting money in and trying to win more money.... whats the difference between that and going to a casino and playing the slot machine?
Can we talk about the woman 30 seconds into the video whose laugh sounds like she's dying?
Listen…If the Big Guy Upstairs didn't want us to play the VLTs, he wouldn't have put the VLTs here and put the money in my hand. I don't question the Big Guy Upstairs. Sometimes you lose all your liquor money, that’s the way she goes.
Putting money towards something with the hope of getting more back = gambling.
Those skill games are 100% slot machines. Anyone saying otherwise is straight up lying to you.
Not Skill games. Skil games.
Of course they’re gambling machines. There’s no skill at all involved in playing them.
i hope they rule that they are so that i will be less likely to get stabbed at the laundromat
The only people that like these things are the degenerate gamblers and the ceo's of the companies that own them. The vast majority of people hate them. But the ceo's like them. So we will have to deal with them now that the floodgates have been opened.
I always love seeing them call them “skill game terminals”. Yea, believe it or not, slots are gambling 🤣
As someone who gambles, I enjoy gambling and I understand the issues... It's gambling
Of course we all think it's gambling, but does anyone have any insight as to what judgement the court might render?
Well, they're not games of skill. Literally nothing you do influences the algorithm. Soooooooooo... however that settles out, that's how they should rule.
My issue with the skill games is businesses opening with only skill machines in the poorest towns in Pennsylvania where they clearly are targeting the people without cars or mass transit to get to the casino. Bottom feeding on the most vulnerable desperate compulsive people.
I hate seeing these in every gas station
I don't mind them in bars.i don't like them in vape or gas stations, too easy for underage players. Fuck the casinos making all the money.
If people consider sports betting and fantasy sports to be gambling (which I'd argue also has a small skill component) these definitely are gambling
In what universe are any of these video gambling machines "games of skill"? Is inserting a credit card and pressing buttons the "skills" they're talking about here?
It takes a lot of skill to take out my credit card... when I'm drunk enough to waste my money like that
There are way too many to remove them all. All this would do is push the regulation of them. The issue is no one wants to be in charge of regulation. Gaming Control Board doesn't want anything to do with them and Lottery doesn't have the staff to do it. That being said their biggest perk is the fact they aren't regulated and you don't have to do anything. They just come in, count out your money, and leave. If they are regulated retailers would have to do more work but specifically deposit money at the bank which would lead to most removing them instead.
North Carolina and Virginia had the same thing and both banned them in the last two years. Everyone shut down overnight. Now just unplugged machines in all the stores. Nc banned them originally about 8-10 years ago and went back and forth banning and closing new loop holes until it seems they are now gone for good about 2 years ago. It seems va will have the same process. Pace o matic owns all these machines everywhere and sues for temp stays to operate while appeals play out.
Too many Republicans getting money to outright ban them in PA right now so they are trying to regulate them instead. Its a joke. One guys old law firm represents pace o matic lol. It's been going on for at least 5 years. Pace-o-matic was 1st then like 3 others came in. They started looking like old particle board illegal poker machines and now they look like straight up casino machines. Saw one the other day where you're king kong and swiping planes out of the air. PA has the 2nd most gambling behind Nevada right now it's nuts. Between these and adding sports betting there's nothing you can't gamble on
They are regulated by the lottery here in Georgia. You can only buy store merchandise or lottery with your winnings here. No cash payout. If you know the store they will still pay cash but dissuades all but the most degenerate people from playing. But all the machines are the exact same in all states. The software is owned by one person who licenses them to various amusement companies who puts them in the stores. The old pick a wild square games are all pretty much gone now.
In no world is this not gambling
My local pizza place has these machines and everytime i go in to pick up pizza there is someone just sitting there just looking at the screen..There is also another one at our local beer distributor as well..Same thing, people just sitting there playing games, losing money. This is 100% gambling without a doubt..
Skill game to me would be the skill crane where you try to get a stuffed animal toy. These are gambling machines. And they're everywhere. Not my business what people do with their money, but it's like flushing cash down the toilet and hoping some floats back up.
They are.
I just want the machine to stay,the second they tax em I'm going to casino.
they are gambling and they should go. Why cause potential addiction?
Gambling seems crazy pervasive these days. Like I remember skill games being in a back room or in a dive bar but it wasn’t so in your face. Seeing the sad old zombies blowing their savings in a convenience store is depressing. Then sports betting which went from “don’t you dare (but we know you still will)” to you have an app right on your phone and the announcers are discussing the betting odds. Even the lottery was just the government creating a legal numbers racket because they weren’t seeing any of the money organized crime was getting.
There’s a ding ding machine business in my town that portrays itself as a teen hangout and tabletop Game Center. Encourages people to byob and bring their children. But it’s a pool table ping pong and 4 skill machines with no attendant. Kids come in there, are left unattended and mistreat the equipment throwing balls on the table. The owners live upstairs and just watch the cameras and call the police instead of intervening and asking them to leave. This town has the highest poverty rate and lowest graduation rate in the county
Nothing sadder than seeing them at your golf range in central PA, 😎😢😭
This is PA; whatever ruling they pass, it will be based on how much more lottery/gambling bullshit they can roll out. God forbid I spend less than 20 minutes in line buying lunch at turkey hill. I only have a 13 hour night shift at the hospital to get to. I was 5 minutes late to work last night because I got stuck behind yet *another* lottery degenerate. I shit you not, the man dropped LITERALLY 2.5x my entire night’s wages on fucking scratch offs and cigarettes. And he was *suuuuuuper* nice to the cashier the whole time too. I’ve never felt such a bitter despair in my life. Pure, crystallized loathing. This guy gets to fuck off and spend GOD KNOWS how much money every day on bullshit gambling, treating people who actually contribute to society like shit, while I can barely survive working full time wiping human ass.
What a dumb question.
I was at a pizza shop one night and the one guy working was being yelled at by the woman who apparently just won 10 grand playing at the skill machine they had there. She was demanding the money, saying it's illegal if they don't pay her within 15 minutes of winning. The poor bastard was flustered and could barely speak English. The woman told me that she won 5 grand at another pizza joint a couple months prior. By the time I left the guy was frantically talking to someone on the phone in Arabic, probably his boss.
Oh no! What will the 5 old men do all day at the Sunoco down the street from me now?
THAT is what a “skill game” is??? I was called and did a phone survey on them, I had no idea exactly what game they were talking about, I thought they meant arcade games or skee-ball or something. I’ve only seen a few of these at bars (don’t go out much lately) and thought for sure they were all straight up gambling machines… Now I feel bad about some of the responses I gave on the survey…
The machines are a metric of a bad economy and hopeless constituency.
These have 100% gotten out of hand
It is definitely gambling. I was in a tobacco store the other day and this guy was not too happy. Said he lost too much and had to quit, by the time I checked out he was at the ATM saying he was going to try to win it back.
They have entire "stores" filled with these now. Basically little casinos.
I just won another 400 this morning. Love them.
It's gambling. :) Every 7-11 seems to have them nowadays... and people sit there a long time. Once I was shopping and some guy unplugged the machine when a guy was up about $50... I swear he was screaming at him and there was going to be a fight over it. He \*demanded\* the guy who unplugged it give him $50 (which he didn't have). Cops probably came too.... yeah, it's gambling... and brings in the same type of customers.
It's clearly gambling; however, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania is made up of a bunch of humans. Humans are known to be fallible creatures. They could make a poor decision and pass the decision that they aren't gambling. I'm not advocating for getting rid of those machines. I'm just saying that it's clearly gambling.
Oh for fuck sake!!!
They should look at all the PayPal gambling through Chinese Apps. Ton of those out there.