At the Gold Spike here in Vegas they had some 85% penny machines. I
wonder
how a state can supercede the Fed law by going down to 80%. My
friend, a
waitress at a popular roadside cafe on the way to Billings, said
people played the
machines knowing the odds were terrible but the profits were going
for
schools.
The little casinos in Montana do a bang up business for the most
part. Multi-game machines were legalized about 8 years ago. Most
Montanans prefer video keno over video poker. The machines are set
up with two different screens, one for keno with about fifteen
different games and one for Poker with about a dozen different
games. So a person who sits down has a very wide selection of what
they might want to play.
There is controversy. Some towns let the casinos run 24 hours per
day, others only 18 hours per day. There is a big anti-gambling
faction in the state.
Compulsive gambling is somewhat of a problem. I had the pleasure of
meeting a Correctional Officer at the Montana State Women's Prison in
Billings. I met him at a bar. He was a friendly fellow and we got
to talking. He mentioned something about the "gambling faction" at
the prison and I started asking questions.
Of the 160 prisoners about 1/3 are in for gambling related offenses.
Mostly writing bad checks. A bad check for $1000 or more is a
felony, or an accumulation of bad checks totalling $1000 or more is a
felony. Apparently, these women would just go off one day and write
bad checks to all the casinos, gamble the money off, and get
prosecuted.
ยทยทยท
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, DRAlNBRAMAGE@... wrote: