Posted on 04/01/2015 7:06:45 AM PDT by MNDude
Despite laws saying otherwise, casinos thrive throughout the state, an underground billion-dollar industry that operates in a murky realm and engages in a perpetual cat-and-mouse game with the authorities. It is unlawful for slot-machine casinos to pay cash to gamblers, but it is legal to own, operate and play the machines in Texas, as long as the prizes are cheap noncash items such as coffee pots.
In 1993, lawmakers approved legislation that seemed so innocuous it was known as the “fuzzy animals” bill. It was intended to ensure that amusement games, such as those played by children at Chuck E. Cheese’s or a carnival that awarded stuffed animals, would not be considered unlawful gambling devices. The bill, signed into law by Gov. Ann W. Richards, legalized any device made for “bona fide amusement purposes” that awarded noncash prizes with a value of $5 or no more than 10 times the amount charged to play the game.
Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main storyContinue reading the main story But operators of illegal gambling rooms began exploiting the law. Hundreds opened in Houston’s Harris County, until county leaders approved tough regulations that required them to close between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m., to have untinted windows and to be at least 1,500 feet from schools, churches and residential neighborhoods. In 2011 in Brownsville in South Texas, the federal Homeland Security Investigations began looking into money-laundering activity associated with eight-liner establishments. They uncovered an estimated 9,000 machines making $300 million annually in Cameron County.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
States should be permitted to legalize gambling, and they should permit it.
That's the way it's supposed to work under the 10th, right?
It's that way for booze here, with my county allowing booze, and the neighboring Johnson county diallowing booze.
Works for me.
/johnny
That sounds suspiciously like “freedom”, FRiend. Please report to your local re-education center immediately!
Yep. Freedom under the 10th, if people can keep it.
It's why Colorado has MJ and Texas never will. And that's the way I like it. Colorado folks have to figure out for themselves if they like having legal MJ.
/johnny
I remember the bumper stickers supporting Bingo.
Legalize BINGO. Keep Grandma off the streets!
Don’t get caught in the Texas traffic heading North to the Indian casinos in Oklahoma! Or East to Louisiana!
Durant in becoming a mini-Las Vegas, and all the big towns along the Oklahoma-Arkansas line have casinos!
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