Pa. Justices Will Weigh If ‘Skill Games’ Are Slot Machines

By: Matthew Santoni

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania will decide if “Pennsylvania Skill Games” are considered “slot machines” under state law. The case follows state agents seizing game terminals from a Dauphin County sports bar, with the Commonwealth Court previously ruling these games are legal due to their skill-based elements. The attorney general’s office appealed, seeking to classify them as illegal gambling devices. Christopher Carusone, representing Champions Sports Bar, told Law360 that he supports the lower court’s decision, emphasizing the games’ importance to the bar and restaurant industry in Pennsylvania.

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania will take up a case and decide whether the “Pennsylvania Skill Games” that combine a chance-based game mode with a secondary memory game fall under the state’s definition of “slot machines,” potentially affecting many storefronts and bars where the game machines have proliferated.

The justices agreed to hear an appeal stemming from state agents’ seizure of three such game terminals from a Dauphin County sports bar, and will review the Commonwealth Court’s November 2023 finding that the memory- and pattern-matching-based game that follows a loss in the chance game takes the machines outside the realm of the state’s definition of slot machines.

“The issues, as stated by petitioner, are: Does an electronic slot machine cease to be an illegal ‘gambling device,’ governed predominantly by chance, if the machine’s manufacturers embed into its programming a so-called ‘skill’ element that is almost entirely hidden from view and is almost impossible to complete?” said the court order granting the appeal, issued Tuesday.