North Carolina’s video-gambling industry didn’t just go away when the General Assembly first tried to ban the games in 2006. They changed their business model, dropping the standalone video-poker terminals in favor of “internet sweepstakes” gaming in which players purchase telecommunications services and then played games with credits. Now that the 2010 legislative session has produced another gambling ban, will the industry fold up shop and disappear?
Don’t count on it. There are too many stores, employees, and customers. Instead, the industry will retool itself again and prepare to litigate the issue in court. Here’s one store manager, John McFalls, speaking to WWAY:
“We actually have a back-up plan,” McFalls said. “We’re not throwing in the towel. Our manager/owner evidently saw this possibility months ago, because he’s been working on a back-up plan. When December 1 rolls around, we’re not shutting our doors. We have something new lined up.”
Though Triple 7 wouldn’t go into detail on what they have lined up, they did say it’s similar to sweepstakes games now.
I’ll offer my opinion once again: state officials should stop chasing these fellas around and find something more productive to do with their time and my tax money.
Read full article » 1 Comment »I try to keep a level head about such things most of the time, but Senate leader Marc Basnight’s farewell remarks to Sen. R.C. Soles at the end of the legislative session last weekend disgusted me:
“Sen. Soles, you are a blessing to all of us, but most especially I will remember you as the one senator who believed that your people were equal to any people in the state,” Basnight said.
Basnight told the Senate that Soles strongly believed that the large metropolitan areas of North Carolina “did not produce anybody any better than the people you represented,” even though they had little income and not the same start that others had in life.
Basnight said he once questioned why Soles spent his entire life in Tabor City. As a wealthy lawyer, he could have moved anywhere and kicked up his feet. Not Soles.
“But you told me there was much work to be done … for the smaller people of North Carolina,” Basnight said.
This creep deserves obloquy, not faux-populist praise.
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