Could SC see a revival in video poker?

Last winter as the Legislature took its first steps to outlaw Internet sweepstakes games, an experienced lawyer with the S.C. Attorney General’s office warned lawmakers that video poker barons always have another card up their sleeves.

Just months after that warning, a bill filed late during the legislative session has some worried the next card may have been played.

The bill, sponsored by S.C. Rep. Bill Herbkersman, R-Beaufort, was introduced, referred to a committee and even received a hearing late in the legislative session. Lawmakers will be able to pick up on the bill where they left off when they return in January.

Herbkersman said the bill would not allow the return of video gambling. Instead, he said, he is filing it on behalf of his constituents in the Sun City retirement community who have complained that the state’s gambling laws are too restrictive.

“We want to get ladies in Sun City to be able to go in the clubhouse, have a glass of wine and play cribbage,” Herbkersman said. “It’s not a gambling law. It’s a personal freedom law.”

Others who have battled video poker for years said some of the same industry players who have been around for years were at the spring hearing, leading to concerns that the bill is another back-door attempt to bring back video poker. This summer, Herbkersman and others who support the bill will meet with State Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel to discuss it.

Meanwhile, police across the state continue their efforts to stamp out video gambling that popped up a couple of years ago when game operators argued they had found a loophole in state law that allowed their machines.

At iInternet sweepstakes parlors, customers paid for a product such as phone cards or copying services and then got to play video games for a chance to win prizes, including cash. They said their games were no different from McDonald’s Monopoly promotion. They also pointed to a measure in the state’s gambling laws that says businesses with beer and wine permits can hold promotional sweepstakes.

Law enforcement, including Keel and S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson, said no loophole existed but urged legislators to rewrite the law to end any debate. Legislators complied, and Gov. Nikki Haley signed the bill into law in March. The warning that the poker industry always will try another tactic came during a Senate committee hearing as legislators moved to close the perceived loophole.

Since then, the sweepstakes parlors, which mostly operated out of strip malls and only served the purpose of gambling, have vanished. Police have reported finding machines scattered across the state in bars, convenience stores and other locations.

Sheriff Leon Lott said sweepstakes parlors vanished from Richland County after he raided one that had opened in the spring of 2012 on Sparkleberry Road Extension. But individual machines occasionally are found in businesses across the county, he said.

Last week, the Columbia Police Department reported it had seized 22 machines from several businesses in Columbia. Most of those machines were called Palmetto Gold or Chess Challenge II, according to incident reports. At one Farrow Road convenience store, the owner told police that customers played the games for a chance to win tickets that could be redeemed for groceries and beverages at the store, according to a May 29 incident report. The machines and $22 were taken by police. Click on their website happmart for more information.