By Dick Miller
WE.CONNECT.DOTS: Few subjects reek more hypocrisy than Pennsylvania governance of video poker machines.
Is possession illegal? Can you get in trouble playing one, even if it does not pay off? Should such a device in your local business always sport an amusement tax stamp?
Depends on which day of the week and where in Pennsylvania your bar or club was the victim of a prohibition-type raid by State Police and/or Liquor Control Board agents. Rarely do the Feds get involved, although the IRS is always looking for someone not reporting income.
The law has been on the books for decades. Just seldom enforced and never uniformly.
PA State Police like to think they have more important duties to perform. Cops, investigators and enforcement agents claim such cases are tedious, time consuming, unpopular and less productive.
Generally, raids are conducted only after citizen complaints.
Sometimes the wife will call police and complain about hubby losing his entire pay check last night at his favorite watering hole. Less frequent, the call-in might be from an owner of a competing bar who is playing by the rules, he says.
Rarest of all are the investigations that start as a political witch hunt or tracking of organized crime.
For bar owners and clubs, flying under the radar of a not-very eager government enforcement program remains the best strategy. Try to get your machines from a small vending service not known to be involved in other, higher profile crimes. Place the machines in an out-of-the-way area of your facilities, not visible coming in the front door.
Don’t get greedy. Accept play only from “regulars” and shut them off before losses mount.
Video poker machines were back in the news this past week. Authorities claim state Rep. Marc Gergely aided in a protection scheme for a favored distributor and the establishments where he placed the devices. The popular Mon Valley Democrat is running for his eighth two-year term.
The Allegheny County lawmaker is organized labor’s top advocate in the state House. Gergely, 46, resigned his position as minority chair of the labor committee when he was indicted by a grand jury.
The Post-Gazette reported a warrant for Gergely’s arrest was obtained about ten days ago “on felony counts of corrupt organizations and dealing in the proceeds of illegal activity, as well as misdemeanor counts involving gambling and election laws.” Supposedly, the charges were the result of a joint investigation by the Office of State Attorney General and Pennsylvania State Police.
“The affidavit supporting the charges states that Mr. Gergely used his political influence to help Ronald (Porky) Melocchi, a longtime friend of the legislator’s father, get video poker machines into various bars and other establishments as part of his million-dollar operation,” according to the Post-Gazette.
Gergely has pleaded innocent. Charles J. Porter Jr., a well-known criminal defense lawyer representing the lawmaker, may use uneven enforcement of the laws as part of his defense.
Identification in the grand jury presentment of “a source deep inside the state police Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement,” available to the perpetrators, may have kept that agency outside the loop.
A civilian BLCE agent, Charles Rubino, has denied providing confidential information. He has, however, been suspended without pay, reports Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
The illegal use of video poker machines “flourished,” as long ago as 1989, according to an account in the Philadelphia Inquirer. For even decades before that, tavern owners lobbied state lawmakers to legalize the devices.
At one time police estimated “2,000 Philadelphia area bars and 20,000 taprooms statewide” maintained electronic poker machines that paid off, it was reported. Even when an estimated 50,000 machines were operated in Pennsylvania, the seizure of 700 total in a single year allowed some politicians to “brag” about their campaigns against organized crime.
Video poker machines became legal in 2004 with the passage of laws permitting casino gambling. There are, however, less than a dozen authorized locations. Profits from these legal machines go to mega corporations, not Mom-and-Pops.
Two of our recent Republican governors, Dick Thornburgh and Tom Corbett were elected to that high office mostly on their prosecution of public corruption. Mysteriously, neither ever picked the low-hanging fruit of video poker games.
Bottom Line: How’s this for varying degrees of local enforcement?
Video poker machines are “verboten” in many Pennsylvania counties where the number of active illegal machines is actually zero. Honest.
Then there are several cities where the laws are not only ignored, but local governments actually charge a premium for amusement taxes on electronic gambling devices. For example, if your bar has a dart game or jukebox, you might pay $50 per year. If it is a video poker machine, the local taxman wants $250.
