This story was originally published by The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom covering gun violence in America. Sign up for its newsletters here.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled that skill games — arcade-like gaming machines that have proliferated by enticing customers with the chance to win cash — are illegal under state gambling laws.
The court stayed its June 15 decision for 120 days, allowing time for the state Legislature to take action on bills that would legalize the games. Lawmakers are expected to adopt measures to tax the games and bring them under stricter oversight.
The ruling comes weeks after The Trace reported that stores hosting the machines had endured robberies and shootings committed by assailants seeking the cash kept on hand to pay winners. In 2020, a robber shot and killed a Hazleton store clerk before fleeing with $14,000 in skill-games money. Another clerk was shot in Philadelphia in 2024 by two robbers who had been playing the machines at a mini-market.
State and Philadelphia officials applauded the decision, which overturned two lower court rulings that found the games were exempt from Pennsylvania’s gaming laws because they incorporate elements of skill and are not housed in state-regulated casinos and horse-racing facilities. Justice David Wecht, writing for the high court’s majority, criticized that argument as “deeply flawed.”
The ruling comes weeks after The Trace reported that stores hosting the machines had endured robberies and shootings committed by assailants seeking the cash kept on hand to pay winners.
After the decision came down, Mayor Cherelle Parker told The Trace that the games have no place in communities facing high levels of violence and poverty. “We are really pleased that the Supreme Court has responded in the manner that many in this city of Philadelphia had affirmed,” she said. “Those games belong in casinos. They don’t belong on our neighborhood commercial corridors.”
Philadelphia City Councilmember Curtis Jones, who led an effort to ban the games, greeted the ruling with an emphatic “Amen!”
“In 120 days, the state will either have to regulate it or those games will leave our community,” Jones said.
The case heard by the state Supreme Court began when Pace-O-Matic, a major skill games developer, sued the state and Philadelphia after law enforcement seized the company’s machines from various locations in the city.
Pace-O-Matic decried the decision, saying it will have far-reaching consequences for the many businesses that host skill games. “They are now potentially left facing an impossible choice: cease operating these games and lose an important source of revenue, or endure a legislative solution that could bring excessive regulation and crippling taxation, which will force them to cease operating these games and lose an important source of revenue,” the company said in a statement.
District Attorney Larry Krasner denounced the existence of the games. “I think they’re a blight,” he said. “These are all schemes to take money away from broke people. That’s the bottom line.”
Elvis Amancio, owner of Amancio Dollar Outlet, operates four skill games at his store on Kensington Avenue, in the heart of an area associated with drug dealing. Despite the area’s high crime rate, Amancio said his game machines have never caused him any trouble, and he was pragmatic about soon having to pay taxes on his earnings from them.
“It is what it is,” he said. “If you make money, I know you’re going to have to pay taxes on it. I understand.”
Mensah M. Dean is a staff writer at The Trace. Previously he was a staff writer on the Justice & Injustice team at The Philadelphia Inquirer, where he focused on gun violence, corruption and wrongdoing in the public and private sectors for five years. Mensah also covered criminal courts, public schools and city government for the Philadelphia Daily News, The Inquirer’s sister publication.
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