Video Lottery Terminals (VLTs): Where I Stand

In the case of proposed legislation known as the so-called Video Lottery Terminal (VLT) bill, for clarification: My position has been well known and hasn’t changed or wavered in 7 years. I am personally against gambling in general, including the lottery. I believe it to be simply a tax on poor people. I have yet to see a billionaire play a slot machine. While gambling and the lottery have been touted as the way to fund everything from education to aid to our veterans, it has fallen far short on all of those promises. The only people that make money on gambling is the operators of those businesses, and the State is left with enormous enforcement and social decay issues related to their presence. 

Gambling, distinguished from “gaming”, are games of chance of which the outcome is controlled only by fate. There is no skill, of any kind, required to participate, except for the ability to insert the money and push a button, which reminds me, by the way, of the pictures of Ham, the chimpanzee that rode a Redstone rocket to outer space in 1961. At least Ham was getting something to push the button. In slot machines there is only the mindless participation of the player to constantly feed money into the machine and watch the lights flash and listen to the bells ring. They would be better served by spending that money on their daily needs. These machines have the intended effect of taking advantage of the less fortunate among us by making implied promises of easy riches and offering the same hope as a drowning man clinging to a straw. 

The problem is that there are currently several “slot” machines called “gray market” machines that have been installed in establishments that range from convenience stores to VFW halls. They are intrusive and pervasive. The owners claim these machines are “legal” and unregulated. They claim that these are not “gambling devices” because of a careful parsing of words that would make your average “ambulance chasing” lawyer blush. Make no mistakes about it; these are gambling devices. (please refer to  Gaming in Legal Limbo: Missouri’s Civil Remedy Shortfall for “Gray Market” Gaming Devices - Missouri Law Review ) They are designed to operate like gambling devices; the people that play them understand them to be gambling devices; and the current law would allow these machines to be classified as gambling devices. 

Platte County has successfully prosecuted these “gray” machines and provides the blueprint for county prosecutors moving forward. I’m having difficulty understanding why every county and the Attorney General isn’t following suit. Perhaps that is the question that needs further attention. This is clearly within the purview of the Executive and Judicial branches of government for them to deal with, and they have all the tools they need to address this problem. 

Barring some wholesale prosecution of the owners and operators of these devices, which seems unlikely, then the only thing we are left with as legislators in order to protect the public, is to attempt to regulate them. While I have misgiving about the morality of using gambling to fund the things we are constitutionally required to fund, the necessity of controlling these machines remains. However, let me make this very clear: the existing machines are illegal. Period. They cannot remain for any period of time. Any law that allows them to remain, rewards those that would flaunt our laws and the protections they are intended to extend to the citizens of Missouri. 

Missouri voters, over the years, have been clear when it comes to gambling and gaming: it is to be illegal except with very narrow exceptions that are approved by the voters. My position has been clear. I can support VLT legislation if, and only if: the gray machines go away; strict limits are in place preventing access by ineligible players; the law would limit the number of machines to prevent “mini casinos”; and the same monitoring and regulations are in place as for slot machines in casinos.

While it is far from ideal, when Missouri voters opened Pandora’s box several years ago by legalizing the lottery and casino gambling, it forced the Legislature into the only option of protecting the public through regulation.