Last Call for Slot Machines

With Strickland signing House Bill 177, making slot machines illegal in the state of Ohio, many slot machine owners are out some serious revenue. Strickland signed the order at 10:20 am on Thursday morning, and the bill became effective immediately.

All slot machines that pay out cash, prizes, etc. that are worth more than $10 are now illegal in the state of Ohio. This obviously covers the exemption that many were calling for after the last measure was passed. Previously it had not been as clear what slot machines were illegal and many were using that fact to bring in machines that were obviously illegal.

The governor said that the people of Ohio have made it very clear on more than one occasion that they don’t want slot machines in the state, so it should not have come as a surprise to those that were bending the law that they would pass a bill that made it clearly illegal. Strickland said that expanding gambling was a non-issue; it just wasn’t going to happen.

With the courts previously allowing slot machines to operate after Strickland and Attorney General Marc Dann had tried to eliminate them, it was amazing how fast the bill ended up getting passed. The bill was passed in the House and then overwhelmingly in the Senate Reference Committee and on the floor.

Coinciding with the new slot machine law, but not in deference to it, Elite Skill Games of Plain Township saw 50 slot machines seized right before the law went into effect. Police say that the raid was the result of months of investigative work, and violations of felony criminal laws that had nothing to do with the new slot machine law.

 

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