Certain bars and restaurants were hoping to appeal a negative decision on prereveal slot machines. However, the Florida Supreme Court has declined the appeal and won’t hear the case.

The justices didn’t offer a reason for their decision. By declining the appeal, they’re letting a ruling stand from the 1st District Court of Appeal.

The 1st District Court ruled that prereveal slot machines effectively constitute illegal gambling. Bars and other restaurants were asked to remove them from their properties.

What Is the History of This Case?

The Florida Department of Business and Profession Regulation was locked in a dispute with Blue Sky Games and Jacksonville’s Gator Coin. They contended that both entities were producing illegal slots.

Blue Sky and Gator Coin argued that the games weren’t illegal, because prereveal slots are different. The department’s Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco then got involved, telling two bars to get rid of their prereveal games.

Blue Sky and Gator Coin have since tried getting legal help in the matter. However, their dreams were crushed when the 1st District Court ruled against prereveal slots.

In a case carrying major implications for gambling in the state, a Florida appeals court on Thursday affirmed a lower court’s decision that so-called pre-reveal gaming machines are illegal slot. Court says ‘pre-reveal’ games that play like slots are illegal. If a video game looks, plays and pays out like a slot machine, it’s a slot machine — even if you know whether you’re going. A three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal upheld a circuit judge’s decision that what are known as “pre-reveal” games violate laws preventing slot machines in most of Florida. The panel’s 10-page ruling found, in part, that the games meet the definition of slot machines because they include an element of chance.

What are Prereveal Slot Machines?

A normal slot machine sees players make a bet and let random fate do the rest. They have no idea what will happen with the spin.

Prereveal slots differ, though, by offering a preview of the upcoming round. Players can get an idea of what symbols will appear on their next spin.

Gator Coin and Blue Sky have argued that the preview aspect takes some of the gamble away. These games at least give players some idea of what they’re betting on.

Florida gaming regulators and other entities don’t believe that the preview feature means anything. They contend that prereveal games are still gambling.

It appears that courts agree for the time being. Prereveal slots remain illegal when offered by unlicensed businesses.

In a stunning reversal, a Tallahassee judge on Monday decided he had gotten it “wrong the first time around” and said games known as “pre-reveal” are in fact illegal slot machines.

Circuit Judge John Cooper, however, was quick to say his change of mind was not influenced by the Seminole Tribe of Florida, but rather by further argument on how pre-reveal, or “no chance,” games actually play.

The Tribe’s lawyer had said that allowing the machines, which look and play like slots, violates their exclusive right to offer slot machines outside South Florida, imperiling the state’s future cut of the Tribe’s gambling revenue by “multi-billions of dollars.”

Whether pre-reveal games affect the Tribe’s deal is “a political issue,” Cooper said Monday. “My holding is not based upon whether (the Tribe) likes the ruling or dislikes the ruling.”

In March, Cooper issued issued a declaratory judgment that “pre-reveal” games weren’t slots. That was because players have to “press a ‘preview’ button before a play button can be activated.” If the outcome of the game is known, it’s not a game of chance, he said then.

But Barry Richard, the Tribe’s outside attorney, has previously argued Cooper misunderstood the game play: “The player is not wagering for the already revealed outcome, but rather on the next outcome, which is unknown.”

Pre Reveal Slots Online

On Monday, Richard added: “Can anybody rationally believe the intent of the Legislature was to jeopardize (the state’s cut) … to allow these machines?”

Argument offered Monday dealt with the state law on slot machines, the nature of randomness, and whether the “unpredictability” of games of chance lies with the player or with the game.

Can You Predict Slot Machines

“Once you walk up to the game, you see the outcome every time,” said Robert E. Turffs, attorney for Blue Sky Games, which designed the software that runs the games.

Cooper countered: “But I have no way of knowing or predicting the next time, is that right?”

He also used an example of professional basketball player LeBron James shooting free throws. “The ball and the hoop has nothing to do with” James’ free-throw percentage—unless the hoop changes size every time he throws, Cooper said.

Is There Any Trick To Slot Machines

The judge, in withdrawing his earlier ruling, said he had come to realize the game was a “series of plays,” including known and unknown outcomes.

Magdalena Ozarowski, attorney for the Department of Business and Professional Regulation(DBPR), said it’s the “later outcomes” of the game—not the one revealed to the player—that are unpredictable to the user. That’s what makes it a slot machine.

The case got started when DBPR agents found one of the games in a Jacksonville sports bar and told the proprietor the machine was an “illegal gambling device.”

The only way to remove the element of chance is to remove the pre-reveal software, Ozarowski added. Without that, you’d have a “box and a monitor.”

Kathey Bright Fanning, president of the Jacksonville-based Gator Coin II company that’s behind the machines, was in the courtroom for Monday’s proceeding. Afterward, she said she was “disappointed” with the judge’s turnabout.

Pre Reveal Slots Casino

“They’re wrong,” she said. “The Tribe is wrong.”

Pre-reveal Slot Machines

Cooper’s new decision will be “immediately appealable” to the 1st District Court of Appeal, he said: “Let’s call it a final judgment.”