North Carolina Court of Appeals Rules Against Skill Game Manufacturer

North Carolina is one of many states to have raised issues with sweepstakes and skill-based games, with the state’s Court of Appeals voting on Tuesday, December 31, in favor of closing down venues that operate sweepstakes kiosks in Robeson County specifically and affecting No Limit Games, a manufacturer.

North Carolina’s Court Finds Skill-slash-Sweepstake Games to Be Unlawful

The opinion backs ongoing law enforcement efforts to oust businesses that have been seen as illegal for a long while, although no final legal decision has been reached in the case. To clarify, North Carolina prohibits electronic machines of any kind that are based on the sweepstakes model and offers awards based on chance.

For the most part, law enforcement and regulators have been playing cat and mouse for the past 20 years with most video poker and slot machine businesses, operators, and manufacturers.

In 2006, the state introduced a law completely banning these machines, but manufacturers adapted their products once again, making lawmakers step up between 2008 and 2010. Fast forward to 2024, however, and the uphill battle has been going on.

The main argument by developers and businesses that offer video poker and slot machines is that those aren’t ordinary gambling products but rather take skill to play in and succeed at. In this, they differ from games of chance and ought not to fall under the same regulation.

Small businesses that have been offering the occasional machine have cited the economic benefits that have derived from hosting the devices, too. However, the latest decision saw two of the judges espouse the opinion that the said machines were indeed games of chance, citing the video games offered by No Limit Games of Greensboro.

A single dissident voice was heard by Judge Jefferson Griffin who backed a previous ruling by Superior Court Judge Michael Stone delivered last year, who also agreed that the said machines had to do with skill more so than with luck.

A Skill Element That Is Impossible to Win, Argues Judge

Griffin argued that if a manufacturer was able to develop a game that took skill over luck, he would be willing to accept that type of game as lawful. The debate, though, is ongoing primarily because those who disagree are not at all convinced that the resulting products are indeed games of skill at all.

The appellate judges mostly argued that comparing previous rulings, the games they deliberated in their latest decisions were not distinct enough from previous ones that have already been successfully defeated in a court of law.

Judge Toby Hampson, for example, argued that certain elements promoted as “skill” were not in fact “winnable.” For example, a memory game played in one of the titles to make sure that you keep going and don’t lose was impossible to defeat, Judge Hampson mused in his ruling.

However, No Limit Games and its legal team remain optimistic that it can still fight its case and will take matters to the highest court. The case that was deliberated on by the court was filed by the manufacturer as the plaintiff.