WILDWOOD – Legislation that Senate President Pro Tem Dave Schatz (R-Sullivan) claims will discourage illegal gambling machines in Missouri will actually kill jobs and criminalize otherwise law-abiding citizens, a Wildwood-based gaming company's spokesman said.
Senate Bill 10 would outlaw games "that are currently perfectly legal" and "would represent a huge expansion of government," Torch Electronics spokesman Gregg Keller told the St. Louis Record.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson
| governor.mo.gov/
"It would increase government spending," Keller said. "It would take members of our highway patrol off of their jobs policing actual, serious crimes and get them into the business of harassing law-abiding small business owners and charitable organizations. And one of the last reasons we oppose it is because it's bad for Missouri jobs; it's bad for Missouri's business climate."
The majority of locations with Torch Electronics' "no chance" machines are "mom-and-pop convenience stores that operate on very small margins, as everyone in that industry does," or are fraternal or charitable organizations.
"These Torch machines support hundreds — if not thousands — of jobs across the state, and we think that SB 10 is going to increase the size of government, it's going to crack down on law-abiding small-business owners and charitable organizations, and it's going to hurt jobs and job creation in our state," Keller said. "So we're opposed to it for a whole host of reasons."
Torch Electronics has donated tens of thousands of dollars to various Missouri politicians, Democrats and Republicans, including Missouri's Republican Gov. Mike Parson, Casino.org reported in September.
SB Bill 10 would empower the state's Gaming Commission, Highway Patrol and Liquor Control supervisor to investigate reports of illegal gambling machines in the state. SB 10 also would add permanent lottery game license revocation to sanctions that can be levied for proven offenses and devices that use random number generation and award monetary prizes to the state's definition of illegal machines.
The bill was pre-filed into the state Senate in early December, passed first reading on Jan. 6 and then second reading on Jan. 14 before it was referred to the Senate's Government Accountability and Fiscal Oversight Committee.
Schatz told the Committee during a Jan. 21 hearing about SB 10 that he filed the legislation "because of the proliferation of illegal gambling machines throughout the state."
“There are dozens — if not hundreds — of establishments across the state of Missouri that house these unauthorized gaming machines," he said in his comments before the committee. "There is no grey area with this. The gaming laws are black and white, and this is impacting revenues that should be going to our schools. There’s no need for us to not move this legislation forward."
On Jan. 28, SB 10 moved out of committee with a recommendation that it be passed. It currently is on the Senate's formal calendar for Feb. 1.
Keller maintained that Torch Electronics' games are legal and that local prosecutors agree.
"They have been found to be legal by literally scores — probably dozens — of local prosecutors across the state of Missouri," he said. "Anytime we have a complaint or issue with one of our machines in a store, the first thing we do is get on the phone with the local prosecutor. We set up a meeting with the local prosecutor and walk through it with the local prosecutor, and explain to them and walk them through how Torch No Chance machines adhere to both the letter and the spirit of Missouri law."
Keller declined to say why, with all that agreement from local prosecutors, Schatz would ever have filed SB 10.
"You'd have to ask Sen. Schatz that," he said. "My concern and my belief is that politicians are always looking for new sources of revenue for government. People get into elective office and often times they spend too much money trying to come up with ideas about how they're going to feed the beast. And I think there are certain people in Jefferson City who look at any unregulated industry, look at any business or industry that is operating, and if they don't think it's being regulated or taxed enough, they believe their responsibility as a politician is to then tax and regulate that business. We see that all the time, and my guess is that's what's happening here."
Jefferson City legislators are "teaming up" in an "unholy alliance" with sympathetic news outlets, including the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, to push for passage of SB 10 and other such "pro-government, anti-business, pro-tax" legislation, Keller said.
"The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has decided that they just absolutely don't like our business, they don't like our industry, they don't like our store operators," Keller said. "And the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has decided they're going to do everything they can to get us regulated and put us out of business, and do what they can to create an environment in which that's going to happen."
Such an unholy alliance may seem odd in Missouri, where the GOP held on to its supermajorities in the state House and Senate during last year's general elections, but certain Jefferson City politicians looking for new sources of revenue are finding the gaming industry too tempting to ignore, Keller said.
"It's going to be a fight for the foreseeable future," he said.
And Torch Electronics isn't going to take SB 10 lying down.
"We're certainly going to fight it every step of the way," Keller said.