A new slots-like gaming machine has been installed at Spee-D-Foods gas stations in Akron and Canton, Ohio, and the Flanders, NJ, company that makes them -- Reel Vegas Slots -- says they are legal because they are games of skill.
To win, players must manually stop three spinning reels, and a co-owner of Reel Vegas says that makes them skill games, not games of chance.
The machines do not pay in cash, but offer winners the right to redeem earnings in food, gas and phone payoffs, and larger items like big screen TVs and iPods.
Customers can bet in 25, 50 and 75-cent plays. Vice president Mark Grovemiller of Spee-D-Foods, who installed the first eight machines six weeks ago, said they were being tried to help forestall closing the gas-food shops, whose business has been hard-hit by lowered gas profit margins.
Reel Vegas says the machines require excellent hand-eye coordination, and vice president Grovemiller told the Newark Advocate they believe the machines are legal and that his company had too much to lose installing anything that was not.
(Harness Tracks of America)