Video Poker 247
- South Carolina’s Video Poker Victory
The State of South Carolina has been fighting the Catawba Indian
Nation in regards to video poker. They have been winning that fight up
until now – when a judge has decided that he would not overturn his
earlier order saying that the video poker games were legal, despite
pressure from higher-ups.
Judge Joseph Strickland had ruled at the end of last year that video
poker was legal for the tribe and that they could use the machines.
State Attorney General Henry McMaster filed a formal plea asking
Strickland to reconsider and make the video poker games illegal. US
Senator John Sprat also supported the plea in attempting to make the
video poker games illegal on the reservation.
However, Strickland denied the request, which leaves the tribe able to
bring in the video poker games onto their reservation. This is of
course a major coup for the tribe as they need the additional income
from the video poker games. They have been trying to get them since
they started losing money to the state’s lottery.
The tribe used to run a Bingo Hall, but residents started playing the
lottery instead, and they lost out on a large sum of revenue from the
bingo games. That is when they turned to video poker to supplement
their current income. The state tried fighting them on it, but the
Catawbas maintained that it was part of their agreement with the state
that they could offer video poker.
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October 2007 Archive
