Wait until the lottery is drawn to see the results. It is an easy process, but the hard part is picking the right sequence of numbers. Additionally, lotteries are usually run by the government, although you can also find lottery games online at online casinos and other gambling sites. Online Lottery vs. The Pennsylvania Lottery scored a big win in the courts last Friday when a state judge refused to grant a temporary injunction on its online games sought by seven casinos in the state.
Slot machines and video lottery machines are often identical in nature. The only difference in most states is where the type of device is located. The exact definition requires the associated state law.
Differences Between Video Lottery State Laws
There are eight states with legal video lottery. Those are Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Montana, New York, Oregon, South Dakota and West Virginia. Seven of those states permit cash payouts on video lottery. Georgia is the exception. Delaware and New York require video lottery to be played only at the state’s race tracks. The others permit it in bars and/or gas stations. Georgia and West Virginia do not permit advertisement of the on-premises gambling.
How Much Can I Bet and Win on a Video Lottery Machine?
The maximum bet is typically $2 on these machines. The exceptions are Delaware and New York because these devices are located in traditional casinos located at the state’s racetracks. There is no limit there.
The maximum individual win is $500 in Illinois, $600 in Oregon, $800 in Montana and $1,000 in South Dakota. West Virginia leaves this to the operator, although most cap it at $1,200. Georgia video lottery machines only print vouchers for merchandise and have no maximum bet or win.
The answer is yes, except in Georgia. Players in that state may only win gift cards, merchandise, gasoline or lottery tickets. Alcohol and tobacco may not be purchased with video lottery winnings in Georgia.
The video lottery machine itself does not pay cash or coins, even in states where payouts are legal. Each device prints a ticket. The player gives it to an employee of the establishment that pays the winner in cash, where permitted. Otherwise, the player wins a gift card or merchandise.
Randomness of Slot Machines versus Video Lottery Games
Many states require that video lottery machines produce random results. This means that a video poker game uses a random number generator and is not purely luck-based when using cards. Slot symbols must also line up as they would in a casino. The same goes for keno numbers. In fact, the only difference most players will notice between video lottery machines and devices found in real casinos is the percentage returned to the player.
Georgia is one exception. Georgia has no commission to enforce fair games. The owners of the machines can set the payout to whatever they would like. Some reports imply that returns are as low as 80% at some locations. Louisiana is another state with video lottery that offers machines that are not studied to determine randomness.
Video Lottery Typical Payouts
Most video lottery terminals return 90-98%. The cap in South Dakota is 92%. Louisiana permits returns up to 94%. Oregon machines pay up to 96%. Players have reported games as high as 98% in Illinois. Delaware and New York video lottery machines may pay up to 100%.
Video lottery terminals typically spread video poker, keno and slot machines. Georgia is the exception. That state only permits skill-based slots as video poker and keno machines are explicitly illegal under law.
Georgia players must make a move after the original slot symbols are dealt. The bettor must choose the correct setting, if there is one, to win. If the player chooses the wrong move, the hand is a loss. The winning move is obvious in most cases. There are bonus rounds where the player’s input changes the outcome. The skill element of these rounds is debatable.
Why Would Someone Play a Video Lottery Machine?
Convenience is the most common reason for playing video lottery terminals. These games are often located in bars in Illinois, Louisiana, Montana, Oregon, West Virginia and South Dakota. Gas stations can often spread these games if alcohol is sold. Georgia permits virtually any business to spread video lottery machines as long as it sells lottery tickets. That means that many people live right around the corner from a video lottery casino.
Drawbacks to Playing Video Lottery Machines
The biggest problem with playing video lottery machines is the low payouts. Games often return around 90%. Games with skill involved may return slightly more, however, the games may be unusual and require a different skill set than a normal video poker game. The maximum payout can also hurt player returns. Never bet more than the amount that returns the highest win permitted by law. Many machines will permit the player to bet more coins without increasing the payout for big keno jackpots or a royal flush.
Avoid Video Lottery Terminals
Some people get bored and simply want to gamble. In most cases, it is better to take the extra drive to the casino as opposed to playing video lottery games in a bar or gas station. The returns can be as high as 10 percentage points better in the casino compared to the video lottery machines. At a $1 bet, that is $.10 a hand. The difference is $60 in theoretical losses per hour when choosing video lottery over a casino.
If you must play video lottery, only wager the minimum bet. There is rarely, if ever, a higher return-to-player between denominations on video lottery machines. On the other hand, casino slots and video poker often reward playing maximum coins and higher denominations with better overall returns.
There is an abiding misconception in the gambling community about the legal history of games like poker in the State of California. It is improperly assumed that poker is permitted because it is a game of skill, as opposed to a game of chance. Misstatements abound that California courts have so held.
The truth is that California law bans (i) most lotteries, (ii) a few specific games and (iii) all unlicensed “banked” or “percentage” games played with cards or dice. There is no mention of “games of skill” in the last two categories The “raked” games are all played for money where the host, or “house,” makes money on the game other than as a mere player competing on equal terms with the other players. All other games are legal.
Article IV, Legislative, Section 19 of the California Constitution [1] bans most private lotteries. The language of the Constitution shows that card games and other casino-style games are not viewed as lotteries. An expansive reading of the meaning of “lottery” to include card and various casino-style games is the law in many states, but California is not one of them.
The basic California gambling prohibitions are in Sections 319 (lotteries) and 330 (other gambling) of its Penal Code.[2] Section 330 was originally enacted in 1872, and has been amended several times since. In 1885 the statute was amended to add “stud-horse poker” (which has now been removed) to the specific games prohibited. No definition of “stud-horse poker” was included in the statute. In an opinion in 1947 the attorney general of California said that “stud-horse” poker was the same as stud poker, and thus gambling at stud poker was barred by the statute. Attorney General Opinion No. 47-25 (March 11, 1947) Note that this Opinion did not address any aspect of the predominance of skill over chance, or vice versa.
The only California case I have found that squarely addresses the issue of skill versus chance in a card game is In re Allen, 59 Cal.2d 5, 377 P.2d 280, which held that the game of bridge is a game of skill, not a game of chance. Neither the California Constitution nor the California Penal Code was in question in this case.
The case involved “a petition for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a defendant who was arrested and charged with a violation of section 22 of article 2 of Los Angeles County Gambling Ordinance No. 461. The section provided: ‘A person shall not knowingly permit any game prohibited by this ordinance to be played, conducted, or dealt, in any house or other premises, owned by, rented by, or in the lawful possession of such person.’ Section 21 of article 2 provides, in part: ‘A person shall not deal, play, carry on, open, cause to be opened, or conduct any game of chance played with cards, dice, or other device for money, checks, credits, or other thing of value.’
The Court had no difficulty in finding bridge was widely recognized as predominantly a game of skill. The Court said: “The term ‘game of chance’ has an accepted meaning established by numerous adjudications. Although different language is used in some of the cases in defining the term, the definitions are substantially the same…. It is the character of the game rather than a particular player’s skill or lack of it that determines whether the game is one of chance or skill. The test is not whether the game contains an element of chance or an element of skill but which of them is the dominating factor in determining the result of the game. Id at 6. [3]
Tibbetts v. Van de Kamp, 271 Cal.Rptr. 792, 222 Cal.App.3d 389 (1st Dist. Ct. Appeal, 1990) held that Texas Hold’em was not a stud poker game and therefore, under Section 330, could be played at the Oaks, a licensed cardroom. [4]
“A game is not to be regarded as one of skill merely because that element enters into the result in some degree, or as one of chance solely because chance is a factor in producing the result. The test of the character of a game or scheme as one of chance or skill is, which of these factors is dominant in determining the result?” People v. Settles, 29 Ca App Supp 2d 781, 78 P 2d 274 (Appellate Department, Superior Court, County of Los Angeles, 1938.)
In Bell Gardens Bicycle Club v. Dept. of Justice, 42 Cal.Rptr.2d 730 36 Cal.App.4th 717 (Court of Appeal, Second District, Division 7, California, July 11, 1995.Rehearing Denied Aug. 1, 1995. Review Denied Oct. 26, 1995) the issue was the legality of “jackpot” poker. In 1989 the California attorney general notified licensed cardrooms, which were offering jackpots, of his opinion that jackpot poker was unlawful because it violated California constitutional and Penal Code proscriptions against lotteries. Various state officials sued a number of the licensed cardrooms seeking to have the jackpot declared illegal.
In “jackpot” poker the “house” withholds money from pots in lawful poker games to fund the “jackpot,” which is won and then split among several players in a game when a specified rare hand is beaten by a better rare hand.[5]
The case finally reached the California Court of Appeals in 1995. The appellate court held that the jackpot feature is an illegal lottery under Penal Code section 319 given the predominance of the element of chance in winning a jackpot. The Court distinguished this from the legal game of poker under section 330. The analysis of skill versus chance in this case went to the question of whether the jackpot feature could avoid the status of being held to be a lottery, not to whether the game of poker itself is legal or illegal on the basis of skill predominating over chance.
End notes:
[1] Article IV, Legislative SEC. 19.
(a) The Legislature has no power to authorize lotteries, and shall prohibit the sale of lottery tickets in the State.
(b) The Legislature may provide for the regulation of horse races and horse race meetings and wagering on the results.
(c) Notwithstanding subdivision (a), the Legislature by statute may authorize cities and counties to provide for bingo games, but only for charitable purposes.
(d) Notwithstanding subdivision (a), there is authorized the establishment of a California State Lottery.
(e) The Legislature has no power to authorize, and shall prohibit, casinos of the type currently operating in Nevada and New Jersey.
(f) Notwithstanding subdivisions (a) and (e), and any other provision of state law, the Governor is authorized to negotiate and conclude compacts, subject to ratification by the Legislature, for the operation of slot machines and for the conduct of lottery games and banking and percentage card games by federally recognized Indian tribes on Indian lands in California in accordance with federal law.
Accordingly, slot machines, lottery games, and banking and percentage card games are hereby permitted to be conducted and operated on tribal lands subject to those compacts.
(f) Notwithstanding subdivision (a), the Legislature may authorize private, nonprofit, eligible organizations, as defined by the Legislature, to conduct raffles as a funding mechanism to provide support for their own or another private, nonprofit, eligible organization’s beneficial and charitable works, provided that (1) at least 90 percent of the gross receipts from the raffle go directly to beneficial or charitable purposes in California, and (2) any person who receives compensation in connection with the operation of a raffle is an employee of the private nonprofit organization that is conducting the raffle. The Legislature, two-thirds of the membership of each house concurring, may amend the percentage of gross receipts required by this subdivision to be dedicated to beneficial or charitable purposes by means of a statute that is signed by the Governor.
[2] Penal Code Sec. 319. A lottery is any scheme for the disposal or distribution of property by chance, among persons who have paid or promised to pay any valuable consideration for the chance of obtaining such property or a portion of it, or for any share or any interest in such property, upon any agreement, understanding, or expectation that it is to be distributed or disposed of by lot or chance, whether called a lottery, raffle, or gift enterprise, or by whatever name the same may be known.
Penal Code Section 330 : Every person who deals, plays, or carries on, opens, or causes to be opened, or who conducts, either as owner or employee, whether for hire or not, any game of faro, monte, roulette, lansquenet, rouge et noire, rondo, tan, fan-tan, seven-and-a-half, twenty-one, hokey-pokey, or any banking or percentage game played with cards, dice, or any device, for money, checks, credit, or other representative of value, and every person who plays or bets at or against any of those prohibited games, is guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall be punishable by a fine not less than one hundred dollars ($100) nor more than one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding six months, or by both the fine and imprisonment
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[3] In similar words, another Court said: “A game is not to be regarded as one of skill merely because that element enters into the result in some degree, or as one of chance solely because chance is a factor in producing the result. The test of the character of a game or scheme as one of chance or skill is, which of these factors is dominant in determining the result?” People v. Settles, 29 Ca App Supp 2d 781, 78 P 2d 274 (Appellate Department, Superior Court, County of Los Angeles, 1938.)
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[4] The Court said: “Section 330 thus proscribes certain specifically identified card and gambling games, as well as “any banking or percentage game.” 4 (A banking game is one in which the ” ‘house’ ” or ” ‘bank’ ” is the principal participant in the game, taking on all players, paying all winners and collecting from all losers. A percentage game is one in which the ” ‘house’ ” does not directly participate in the game, but collects a percentage from it which may be computed from the amount of bets made, winnings collected, or the amount of money changing hands. (Sullivan v. Fox (1987) 189 Cal.App.3d 673, 678-679, 235 Cal.Rptr. 5.)) Thus, a card game played for money not specifically listed under section 330 and not played as a banking or percentage game is not prohibited. (See In re Hubbard (1964) 62 Cal.2d 119, 126, 41 Cal.Rptr. 393, 396 P.2d 809; Monterey Club v. Superior Court (1941) 48 Cal.App.2d 131, 148, 119 P.2d 349; 9 Ops.Cal.Atty.Gen., op. cit. supra, at p. 109.) Id at 794
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[5] In this case the game of Lowball was involved. In Lowball a “wheel” (A,2,3,4,5) is the best possible hand and a hand of A,2,3,4,6 is second best. The jackpot is awarded when a player has the second best hand and is beaten by someone holding the best possible hand. Experts, including Mike Caro, testified that the odds of winning a jackpot were one in 23,692.