I just got home last night from a long drive back from Oregon. It was the culmination of a trip to Salt Lake City to go to the Family History Library to do some genealogical research, then on to Wendover to check that scene out, then to Oregon to visit one of my sisters and family.
In Oregon I stopped to eat at a Denny's. In my search for the restroom I stumbled onto six machines that had video poker and video lines games on them. What the hell? I looked on the machines for the manufacturers....IGT, Bally's, Spielo. I immediately started asking questions to those around me. After my meal I whipped out my windows phone and started googling. At the hotel in Pendleton I brought my laptop in and did some more googling. Quite a story.
I remembered my step-dad and watching the illegal video poker activity in Oregon in 1988. But I was not the only one watching. The authorities in Oregon were watching too. Lotteries got introduced in Oregon in 1984. The officials involved figured that illegal video poker was a $100 a year industry in Oregon.
These officials studied the situation out....then went gansta. They moved to take over the industry. The first move was to outlaw private ownership of video poker machines. The next move was to buy their own machines and place them in the bars, restaurants, and taverns. Up to six machines per business. And they gave the businesses about a 25% cut of the money generated. They had copycatted the entire business model of the illegal operators. LOL! They called it the Oregon Video Lottery. And the machines are known as Video Lottery Terminals. They operate with RNG's.
The games on the machines were capped at a 95% payback and a $600 max jackpot. In 2005 they added video line games to the mix. In 2011 they took the $600 cap off. I don't know what the cap is now but I seen jackpots as high a $6000. In 2015 they replaced the old machines with the new modern stuff from IGT, Bally's and Spielo.
There are 12,000 of these video lottery terminals spread out amongst 2400 small businesses. The figures I see online are the machines gross about $900,000,000 a year. About 25% goes to the small business owners then after expenses the state has about $550,000,000 to spend on education, parks and economic development.
When you see the sign in the screenshot below hanging in front of a small business it means they have the machines inside:
http://www.imgur.com/EaWvOap
Posted by: mickeycrimm@yahoo.com
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