Ohio is keen to continue cracking down on illegal venues that continue to offer games of chance without license, serving as underground casinos
Illegal casinos in Ohio keep sprouting up with authorities swooping in to end the practice. Despite major busts, and more than 7,500 confiscated slot machines by the Ohio Casino Control Commission, the appetite for these venues has not really changed.
Gambling Parlors Offer Thousands of Slot Games
The reasons why can be many and varied – many people prefer to play locally, but local casinos are not always available, opening the market for such operations. The people perpetrating these crimes are not usually facing too serious charges, nor are their subsequent penalties too steep – few go to prison if at all.
Ohio presently provides 1,500 slot machines, which is significantly less than the 7,500 confiscated machines in the past 10 years. Ohio Casino Control Commission executive director Matthew T. Schuler has commented, though, that authorities have achieved significant progress in uprooting bad actors and ensuring that slot machine parlors and their owners have fewer incentives to get into business for the first time.
The approach is multi-pronged. On the one hand, there is raising awareness about these parlors, and the unsavory practices they may engage in to turn a profit.
“They would like you to empty out your social security checks or any type of means and they will do nothing to stop you from burning through all of that We’ve heard some pretty tragic stories from children of elderly parents who visit these places and wind up being completely broke,” Schuler noted.
On the other hand, the commission, along with prosecutors, has been targeting such venues as well, making it costlier for them to run their business. Another matter to have been addressed is the fact that many people who gamble at such parlors have no idea that they are operating illegally.
People in Ohio Unaware They Are Gambling Illegally
Schuler further insists that these parlors are not well-intended, as they will also go to great lengths to make sure they end up in the black, often rigging the games themselves, the regulator has said.
To help the public find their bearings, Schuler has a simple piece of advice – if it’s not one of the four legal casinos or seven legal racinos, the venue that is offering gambling devise is certainly illegal.
Another issue raised by the commissioner is that many parlors will argue that they are featuring games of skills, i.e. games where the individual can influence the outcome.
This, argues Schuler, is not true. As more crackdowns are coming, the regulator is optimistic that the number of slots available illegally will continue to decline despite the challenges of eliminating them.
