The Lottery
Commission is scheduled to hold a vote during their Thursday, March 26 meeting
to approve regulations on electronic gaming devices.
Currently,
the Lottery Commission is planning to vote
on proposed regulation that will negatively impact small businesses that
have entertainment games in their business. The Commission held an open comment
period in 2014. NFIB, our members, and partner organizations submitted comments
in opposition to the proposed regulations. To date, none of these
comments have been taken into consideration, as the Lottery Commission is
supposed to hold a Final Vote to approve Regulations over Electronic Gaming
Devices during their Thursday, March 26 meeting. The proposed regulations
remain unchanged.
The
Regulations are harmful to small and family-owned businesses that have
entertainment machines such as the claw or pinball in their business.
NFIB and
partner organizations are trying to withdraw the issue from the agenda and
prevent the vote.
If your business has any amusement games such as arcade games,
coin-operated games, pinball, crane or claw machines you could be impacted by these regulations that lump amusement games under
regulations for electronic amusement devices. These new requirements
include:
- Registration of all individual operations
- Registration of every “skills-based amusement device”
- Reporting of every move of every registered device
- Requiring stickers from the MLGCA on every machine
- Limits on prizes from traditional toy cranes, claw machines and other redemption machines
- In addition to existing licensing, taxes and fees
History:
- In 2012, the General Assembly passed SB 864 regarding regulations on amusement games.
-
February 26, 2014 Senator Edward Kasemeyer, Chairman of the Senate
Budget and Taxation Committee, and Delegate Sheila Hixson, Chairwoman of
the House Ways and Means Committee, submitted a letter detailing the
legislative intent to the Commission. - June 13, 2014 the Maryland Register published Subtitle 06 Electronic Gaming Devices- 36.06.01- 36.06.06
- Maryland Amusement and Music Operators Association (MAMO)
- July 11, 2014 Baltimore Sun article, “Businesses howl over new rules on game machines”
- August 5, 2014 Baltimore Sun article, “Game machine business looses round in rules fight”
- August 15, 2014 OC Today article, “Arcade owners express concern over regs”
- August 15, 2014 Washington Post article, “GOP hopeful Hogan decries fees on arcade machines as he tours Ocean City boardwalk”
- On Tuesday August 5, 2014 the Baltimore Sun reported that Sen. Paul G. Pinsky,
co-chairman of the Joint Committee on Administrative, Legislative and
Executive Review, said his panel won’t ask that the rules proposed by
the Maryland Lottery and Gaming Control Commission be put on hold to
allow for committee hearings, meaning that they plan to move full steam ahead with these regulations. To read the full article, click here. - See NFIB Member Larry Stottlemyer, owner of Adventure Park USA talk about this issue here
