Internet Cafes Continue to be Busted for Illegal Gambling
Murray, Utah, is the site of the latest police raid of an Internet cafe for the conducting of illegal gambling. Across the US, storefront operations have been shut down by legal authorities, who assert the stores are using a roundabout method to operate what is basically slot machine gaming.The Murray incident was perhaps a bit more brazen than others. The Fortune Cyber Cafe was permitting customers to play at games that contained poker, Keno, and slot games. Police, who arrested almost 50 employees and customers, say they have watched the store with undercover operatives for the last few months.
But the Internet cafe situation is not unique to Utah. From California to Texas to Florida, little strip-mall operations are conducting business in full view of the public, claiming their methods skirt gambling laws, only to find local authorities disagreeing with them.
The general concept is that customers purchase time on Internet machines at the stores. But the machines also double as slots, accepting time units as coins for betting. If a player wins, the machine gives him a ticket for the extra time he has acquired, and the store buys back the unused time units, converting the winnings to cash.
Business owners say the cafes are only dealing in time units, but police disagree. If an Internet cafe is allowing customers to risk time to win more, and buying the time back, then patrons can assume the store is itself operating on limited time.
