Judge: Video gaming machines violate law

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The Tic Tac Fruit video gaming machines do not require skill and violate Ohio’s law against games of chance, a judge has ruled.

The order came in a case brought by a Fraternal Order of Eagles lodge in Meigs County where state liquor inspectors, responding to an anonymous tip, confiscated three of the increasingly popular barroom games in December 2004.

A statewide crackdown on the machines had been suspended while the case was heard.

In the case against the Ohio Liquor Control Commission, the lodge argued that the devices were “skill-based amusement machines,” which do not fall under a state prohibition against games set up to pay winners and guarantee profits to the machine owners.

Judge Charles A. Schneider of Franklin County Common Pleas Court said in a ruling issued on Friday that the experts who testified in the case — which began in Meigs County — agreed that the machines were programmed to return a 5 percent profit to their operator or owner.

In Tic Tac Fruit, a player inserts money and bets on the game’s outcome, then uses a Tic Tac Toe grid to try to line up pieces of fruit in a row.

“A review of the record of the testimony given by the various experts lends support to the conclusion that Tic Tac Fruit machine outcome is not largely or predominantly controlled by the skill of the player,” Schneider wrote.

For now, Schneider wrote, the machines appear to be in violation of Ohio’s games-of-skill requirement, but new devices being developed rely more on skill and that could prompt further challenges to the law.

“This may be especially true with the citizenry voting to not allow slot machines at various racetracks (in November),” the order said. “The wisdom and efficacy of efforts to keep gambling machines out of liquor establishments is not with the province of this court to judge.”