Video gambling chronology

Web posted June 25, 2000

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From Staff

Key dates in the rise and fall of video poker in South Carolina:

June 14, 1973: The IRS ranks South Carolina third, behind Nevada and Tennessee, in federally issued gaming stamps, which qualify machines as gambling devices that pay off. It's the first recognition that illegal gambling on pinball and slot machines is widespread while law enforcement looks the other way.

Aug. 27, 1976: A federal judge in Charleston rules that upright slot machines are illegal under state law despite their federal licenses.

Jan. 28, 1977: A circuit judge in Horry County rules that upright electronic game machines are slot machines and illegal in South Carolina.

Sept. 22, 1981: A circuit judge in Richland County says electronic games are legal if they are coin-operated, have a free-play feature and don't pay out money to winners.

May 1986: Sen. Jack Lindsay, D-Marlboro, slips a proviso in the state budget making cash payouts legal.

May 3, 1990: More than 200 federal, state and local police use federal search warrants to seize poker machines and cash in Lancaster County. A federal judge later throws out indictments made from ``Operation Busted Flush,'' saying machines that are legal under state law can't be illegal under federal law.

April 22, 1991: The state Supreme Court rules that cash payouts from video poker machines are legal in South Carolina if the payouts are dispensed by the machines themselves.

June 1991: A bill to regulate the video poker industry passes the Senate. The House adds an amendment outlawing payouts. The Senate won't concur, fearful of losing poker revenues that have climbed to $30 million a year.

June 14, 1993: The Legislature passes a compromise bill that limits payouts to $125 a day, restricts to eight the number of machines at any one location, bans advertising, limits operating hours and requires that businesses with poker machines make more than half their money from something else. The act also authorizes a referendum allowing each of the 46 counties to decide whether payouts should be legal.

July 1, 1993: A federal judge refuses to delay enforcement.

Nov. 15, 1993: A federal judge upholds most of the new regulations but strikes down the requirement that businesses earn most of their money from something other than video poker.

Nov. 8, 1994: In referendums, 34 counties vote to keep poker payouts legal. The payouts are banned in Aiken and 11 other counties, mostly upstate.

Jan. 23, 1995: The state Supreme Court says video gambling machines that require no skill - about half the electronic games paying winners in the state - are illegal slot machines. It rules that video poker requires skill and is legal.

Feb. 9, 1995: Forced out of the 12 counties that banned payouts, video poker operators ask the state Supreme Court to overturn the November referendums.

June 1995: Gov. David Beasley vetoes the state budget because it relies on video poker revenues, entrenching himself as an enemy of the industry.

July 1995: In the 12 counties that unplugged poker machines, a federal judge allows payouts to resume temporarily. Then he hands the case to the state Supreme Court, which is already mulling a similar case. The machines are unplugged again.

November 1995: The court upholds the veto. But it says the 1994 referendums were unconstitutional because they allowed some counties to criminalize an activity that is legal elsewhere in the state. A month later, the court refuses to reconsider its opinion. Machines are back on in Aiken and other counties that didn't want them.

June 6, 1997: Mr. Beasley signs a bill making poker payouts a civil offense in the counties that had tried to criminalize them. Video poker operators sue him again.

July 1997: Players file a lawsuit against some of the state's largest poker operators, saying the lure of big jackpots addicted them. Mr. Condon tries to join the lawsuit, seeking $1 billion from the operators. To do it, he drops his separate effort to have the machines declared illegal and the operators arrested.

January 1998: Mr. Beasley calls for a poker ban and submits a budget that excludes $62 million in anticipated license revenues for the machines. The House votes to ban the games and backs a budget that depends on their revenues. And in January, U.S. District Judge Joe Anderson allows the addicted gamblers' lawsuit to proceed under federal racketeering law, commonly called RICO.

Feb. 24, 1998: Judge Anderson asks the state Supreme Court to decide if video poker games are games of chance and thus illegal under the state's constitutional ban on lotteries.

March 25-April 8, 1998: Senators who say voters should decide the video poker issue filibuster to keep Mr. Beasley's payout ban from coming to a vote. They succeed.

Nov. 3, 1998: Mr. Beasley loses the governor's office. The state also gets its first casino boat at Little River.

Nov. 19, 1998: The state Supreme Court rules 3-2 that video poker is not a lottery.

January-June 1999: Mr. Hodges takes office, calling for taxes and regulations on the poker industry while Judge Anderson orders five of the biggest poker magnates to obey the $125-a-day payout law.

Oct. 14, 1999: The state Supreme Court rules that lawmakers can't abdicate their duty to voters. The referendum, which would have been Nov. 2, is canceled. The rest of the new law remains intact. It means that video poker ends July 1, 2000.

April 2000: The high court refuses to hear an appeal by the poker industry.

May 25: Two small poker companies based in Greenville and Darlington counties ask a circuit judge to overturn the pending ban. June 1-2: Some machines are shut down when owners balk at paying $4,000 for new licenses to operate one more month. (License expiration dates are staggered.) Law enforcement agents find 23 license violations in a sweep of the state.

June 8: With the drop-dead date looming, the Supreme Court agrees to take the case without a lower court decision first.

June 21: The South Carolina Supreme Court rejects the video gambling industry's legal claim that the ban would violate its constitutional rights.