North Carolina Sweepstakes Operators Scramble to stay open

The video sweepstakes ban attempts to outlaw games in which people purchase a service, such as Internet access or telephone calling card minutes, and in the process enter a gambling-style sweepstakes game played on a computer screen. Customers usually focus on the gambling and winning money, and rarely pay attention to the service they have purchased.
Since Dec. 1, the Lucky Charm Internet Cafe on Hope Mills Road closed temporarily to install new games, said owner Ann Drabek.
Where the cafe once had about 10 "pot-of-gold" machines and 12 Internet terminals, it now has just the 12 terminals. The new games on the terminals have changed their rules and use less flashy graphics.
The constitutional section of the law bans sweepstakes video games that resemble popular gambling games, such as card games, bingo, keno and slot machines. Other games that involve the random or chance matching of two or more words, pictures or other symbols also are illegal.
The new games got a mixed reception from players. One woman, so shy about her playing that she took a seat away from the store windows, said she likes the simplicity of the new games. Whereas the games used to require her to play cards or to match several pictures to win, now she wins when just one picture of a lucky horse shoe or elf's pipe appears on the screen.
"It's nice, because I didn't know how to play cards anyway," said the woman, who declined to be identified.
But Chris Edge of Fayetteville misses the old games.
"It's not as much fun as it was before," he said. New games feel slower and have less excitement, he added.
Drabek, the owner, re-opened the cafe Tuesday. She estimates her business is down 50 percent compared to before Dec. 1.
The Sheriff's Office is handling enforcement of the law in the county, plus Hope Mills, Spring Lake, Eastover and Stedman, said spokeswoman Debbie Tanna. The department will investigate complaints, she said, and was visiting the cafes to monitor their compliance. But the Sheriff's Office has since stopped while it waits for the courts to rule on the ban's constitutionality.
"We will not start visiting again until the law is defined," Tanna said.
Butler made this decision in consultation with other sheriffs, Tanna said.
"When they are ready to move on this law, they will do so as a group," she said.