Some Arizona businesses looking for extra profits have foundthemselves on the wrong side of state gaming laws.
And their customers hoping for a win may have been cheated toboot.
The Arizona Department of Gaming has seized dozens of “coinpusher” machines located in bars, convenience stores and otherstops. Mark Brnovich said while the ones confiscated so far are inMaricopa County, there is evidence the devices are in shopsthroughout the state.
And they are there illegally.
The names of the shop owners were not released. Brnovich said itis possible they were duped.
“What we think is happening is someone is basically going aroundand pitching these to store owners, convenience store owners, barowners, small shops, telling them there’s no problem, they’relegal,” he said. “The store owners are taking the person’s word onit and installing them and using them to make a profit.”
That, said Brnovich, is not true.
He said state law does allow for amusem*nt devices, even thosewhere people can — but are not guaranteed to — win something.Brnovich called that the Chuck E. Cheese exception, referring tothe chain of pizza outlets that caters to families with variousgames that let customers win small prizes.
But Brnovich said this is quite different from putting a quarterin a machine in hopes of clawing a stuffed animal.
These machines operate by a coin starting a “pusher” whichshoves the coins in the machine, including the one just inserted.At some theoretical point, the new coin adds just enough so that avolley of coins at the front end fall into a hopper to be retrievedby the player.
Brnovich said state law makes any machine which awards cashillegal. And he said merchandise prizes can’t be worth more than$4.
Beyond that, Brnovich said state law makes the setting of amachine crucial to the question of its legality.
He said a device set up in an “amusem*nt setting,” like a pizzaparlor for families, has prizes “that are not offered to lure orseparate players from their money.” That, said Brnovich, isdifferent from something set up at a bar.
In any event, though, the fact that the pushers offer cash makethem off limits no matter where they are located.
Brnovich said that, in the case of many of the machines, it’snot even like the customers got a fair shake.
“It appears that these devices were not only illegal, but thatmany patrons didn’t even have a chance to win the prizes that wereoffered,” he said.
The Attorney General’s Office said that the machines actuallycheat customers because they have hidden compartments: Some of thecoins that fall into the bin never make it to the customer butinstead remain in the machine.
“These devices are a fraud on the public,” Attorney GeneralTerry Goddard said in a prepared statement. “They are builtcleverly to deceive the player into thinking that coins or othervaluables are about to fall into the collection bin as winnings,but players can’t see how they really work.”
