Video poker in Louisiana close to having a new look, as lawmakers negotiate changes | NOLA.com
The Louisiana House of Representatives and Senate will negotiate over exactly how to relax regulations around video poker operators in the state over the next couple of weeks.
The House and the Senate have voted in favor of a bill backed by the video poker industry that changes its rules and the definition of what counts as video poker, but the Senate did not agree to the changes that the House made to legislation Monday night (May 7).
Alton Ashy, the chief lobbyist for the video poker industry, said he had enough senators supporting the legislation to get it approved, but some of them were absent from the floor Monday when it came out for a vote.
He doesn't expect the proposal to run into many problems when House and Senate members negotiate differences the coming weeks. Gov. John Bel Edwards is expected to sign the legislation.
Senate Bill 184, sponsored by Sen. Danny Martiny, R-Kenner, would change the definition of what constitutes video poker, allow for more elaborate displays and different graphics on video poker machines and lower the cap of how much fuel video poker operators at truck stops would have to sell to stay in business.
The current definition specifically says a video poker machine is not a machine that includes video lineup games and mechanical reel games or combinations of those types of activities. Martiny's legislation removes the restrictions that says these types of games don't constitute video poker in state law.
The legislation also allows video poker machines to include more displays "for entertainment purposes" and provides that more decks of cards can be used during games.
An initial version of the legislation would have allowed games other than video poker to be played on video poker machines, but the industry said it has since abandoned that proposal, Ashy said.
The Office of the Attorney General told the video poker industry that they would need a constitutional amendment to add games that aren't considered video poker, Ashy said. That would require a ballot initiative in parishes where video poker operates currently, and the industry didn't want to pursue that, he said.
Changes still included in the bill would possibly allow video poker machines to look drastically different than what they do now.
"We are just trying to create more interesting graphics," Ashy said. "We want to give manufacturers more leeway on what the graphics might look like. It would give a player something more to look at than a deck of cards."
Supporters of the legislation have said video poker operators would like their machines to look more like slots.
Gene Mills, executive director of the conservative Christian Louisiana Family Forum, has generally opposed gambling proposals. He has been negotiating for weeks with Ashy to weaken the video poker bill. Mills has a lot of sway with socially conservative legislators and could make the bill difficult to pass if he opposes it.
Video poker doesn't produce as much money for Louisiana as riverboat casinos, but its contribution isn't small. In the 2015-2016 budget cycle, video poker operators collected $580 million in net revenue and produced $186 million in funding for local and state governments.
More than 13,000 video poker machines are in about 1,800 establishments across Louisiana. In excess of half are found at truck stops. Jefferson Parish has the most machines, with more than 1,700 operating, according to the Louisiana Gaming Control Board.
Video poker at truck stops, alone, produces more money than Harrah's New Orleans casino. Net revenue from truck stop video poker was $402 million in 2015-2016, with $130 million going to state and local governments. At Harrah's, it was just $293 million, with $64 million going to government operations, according to the 2017 report.
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