Sad Day: Legal Senior Arcades Fall With Internet Cafes

What a shame to see the Internet sweepstakes cafe bill go to the governor with harmless senior arcades attached.

And why? Because the pari-mutuels want it all. Because at the eleventh hour, their lobbyists convinced gaming committee members that senior arcades were no different from Internet cafes. Presumably now, they believe, seniors will hobble into track casinos and play slot machines instead -- given that their arcades are standing empty.

This is crazy.

Seven years ago Gale Fontaine, now president of the Florida Arcade Association, testedFS 849.161, Florida's constitutional law on gambling -- and senior arcades were found legal.

On Aug. 15, 2006 -- in less than four hours of deliberation -- a Broward County jury acquitted Fontaine, owner of a Pompano Beach adult game room, of illegal gambling charges. The case might not have been finite, but it had immediate ramifications for the adult arcade industry, not only in Broward County, but across Florida. The case marked the first time in the county -- and one of the first times statewide -- that an adult game room owner had a jury decide the legality of the businesses' video machines.

Fontaine proved her point, period. Arcade machines follow the law.

Here's what juryforeman Christopher Peters said after the trial: "I think we felt she acted in good faith in opening up her establishment and we also felt the machines were a game of skill."

A game of skill. Not a game of chance.

I don't hold out much hope, knowing his feelings on Internet cafes, but I very much wish, for the sake of the hundreds of thousands of law-abiding senior citizens this legislation affects, that Gov. Rick Scott would insist senior arcades are stripped from the Internet cafe bill.