Court lets stand ruling on gambling machines

The ruling is a setback for the Ohio attorney general.

COLUMBUS (AP) — A state appeals court handed Attorney General Marc Dann a legal setback Tuesday in his fight over electronic gambling machines in bars and other businesses.

Dann had sought to overturn a judge’s order last week stopping the state from enforcing a ban on Tic-Tac-Fruit machines. But a three-judge panel of the 10th Ohio District Court of Appeals said the temporary restraining order must be resolved by a lower court.

Leo Jennings, a spokesman for Dann, said the attorney general would try to remove the order in Franklin County Common Pleas Court today.

At issue is whether Tic-Tac-Fruit, in which bettors try to line up pieces of fruit on a video screen, is a game of skill, as proponents claim, or a game of chance, which is illegal in Ohio.

Dann ordered last week that 50,000 of the machines be shut down. On Friday, a judge granted the order blocking the move to Ohio Skill Games Inc., which distributes the game Tic-Tac-Fruit.

Dann argues that allowing Tic-Tac-Fruit machines to continue to operate, even temporarily, would bring neighborhood degradation, gambling addiction, prostitution and other social ills associated with gambling.