PITTSBURGH — Frank Fingers bent over to stabilize the block of wood and metal as the dolly came crashing down over the stairs.
It landed on the concrete sidewalk outside the VFW hall in Lawrenceville with a satisfying thud. Fingers straightened up, following another worker around the back side of the Rite Touch Distribution truck.
There, they loaded up the first of six skill games that had been inside the hall for a decade. Several were already on the truck from a prior stop. Fingers said they still had two more locations to hit before they returned to the warehouse.
“About 25 so far this morning, but hundreds already so far in the last few days,” Fingers tallied.
Fingers and his 12 workers were racing around Western Pennsylvania collecting the machines ahead of a state Supreme Court deadline Wednesday that outlawed the machines, which have long existed in a legal loophole.
Back in June, the court ruled that skill games were illegal slot machines. The justices gave lawmakers 120 days to come up with a set of regulations.
Lawmakers couldn’t agree on how much to tax the games, with proposals rising as high as 52%. The fight became a stalemate between the Senate and the House. The legislature ultimately did nothing.
“It doesn’t put any confidence in the government,” Fingers said. “These are all small businesses. They’re holding out for the big businesses. That’s how we feel.”
Social clubs made up a big part of Fingers’ business. He removed 12 machines from American Legion Post 600 in Oakmont Monday, whose members would play the games while socializing and use the winnings to buy other patrons a round of drinks.
Post Commander Bill Carr said the machines made his club $1,000 per week, or approximately half their revenue.
He said, after the bills were paid, half the revenue went toward renovating their historic structure, while the other half went to donations to nonprofit groups like nursing homes and sports leagues.
“It’s not only going to hurt us; it’s going to hurt the community,” Carr said. “All these people we donate to, we’re going to have to make hard decisions if we continue to do that.”
He said he hadn’t yet found a legal way to make up the lost revenue. Other types of games suggested by his members fell into the same category, while video games made so little he only checked the machines every few months.
“I’d like to see [skill games] attached to the small games of chance license,” Carr explained. “We already have it. Other clubs have it. That would eliminate a lot of these other places that really don’t need the revenue.”
It wasn’t the only solution put out Tuesday. Lobbying group Play PA for Charity, which represents veterans groups like the American Legion, called on lawmakers to legalize a type of self-contained lottery system known as an e-tab machine.
“Charitable clubs need e-tabs. They need more members and more revenue, and their communities need more chances for charity,” the group’s statement read. “As an expanded small games of chance option, e-tabs give them all of that.”
Carr said he hoped that lawmakers would push through some regulation to save the state’s estimated $250 million in annual tax revenue generated by skill games, though not at the 52% tax rate Gov. Shapiro proposed, which he said would make the games unsustainable for clubs like his.
If so, he said he’d happily meet Fingers’ truck and have the machines reinstalled.
“Elections are coming up,” Carr said. “I think us business owners have a right to know who’s on our side and who’s not before we cast that ballot.”
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