Kentucky AG to back skill-based gaming investigations across the state

Skill-based gaming in Kentucky has been assailed repeatedly, with lawmakers taking issue with this form of entertainment and continuously equating it to a form of unregulated, gray area gambling.

The new statement has most likely to do with the attempt by manufacturers to comply with the law by changing the wording of their gaming machines to "risk-free," another highly disputed term.

Kentucky’s Attorney General throws his weight behind push against gray machines

Now, the Bluegrass State’s Attorney General (AG) Russell Coleman seems to think as much himself. In a statement, Coleman’s office said that it would be assisting law enforcement and prosecutors in their commitment to uprooting illegal gambling across the state.

"The law is clear – gray machines and other games like them are illegal gambling devices that have no place in Kentucky," the statement signed by the AG read. He said that HB 594, which was backed by Rep. Killian Timoney and House Speaker David Osborne, that passed successfully, will now be observed to the letter.

HB 534 effectively pronounced skill-based gaming machines as an outlawed gray area that must not be available to residents in the state. AG Coleman said that he welcomed the investigation into violations of the Commonwealth’s gambling laws, which now extend to this type of gambling.

"We are prepared to provide whatever assistance your office may need if your investigation or prosecution of illegal ‘gray machines’ is challenged in court or results in additional constitutional challenges to the law or litigation against your office," the statement read.

Although HB 594 was challenged at the Franklin Circuit Court, the court ultimately sided with the decision to treat skill-based gaming machines as a form of gambling that is not authorized under state rules.

Call them what you want, "risk-free" machines are likely Kentucky’s next target

Because skill-based gaming is coming under assault, manufacturers such as Prominent Technologies have applied the "risk-free" label to their devices, insisting that they complied with the law, offering players to know in advance whether they would win on their next turn.

This has not ameliorated the situation with lawmakers still seeing these "new" machines as a form of illegal gambling. There are some 500 such machines in the state of Kentucky, and AG Coleman, his office, and law enforcement may bring them.

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