The U.S. state of Georgia (not to be confused with the Asian country) is going to crack down on gambling cafés. Up to 100 Internet cafés are currently operating in the state, each either taking advantage of a legal loophole or outright violating gambling laws. Georgia Governor Nathan Deal has now ordered the state to crack down on the activity and shut down the illegal businesses.
Deal said that the state needs to crack down now because the companies are trying to add up to hundreds more locations. Representatives of the gambling cafés have been contacting the district attorneys in their area and pleading the case that they are conducting a legal business. Seen as a move to solidify their legal position, Deal wants to shut them down now.
Unlicensed gambling businesses are legal in Georgia and the state does not give out any online gambling licenses. By those clear rules, the cafés should be illegal. However, the businesses say that they don’t violate the law because the players don’t pay to place wagers. Instead, they pay for time on the Internet and are able to win prizes, including cash and products. According to the Internet cafés, that means it is not a gambling business, even though the customers are playing on sweepstakes machines for prize money.
State Attorney General Sam Olens said that he is working to debunk the “complicated legal interpretations” by the gambling cafés. Governor Deal had a more brunt response: “If it quacks like a duck and it looks like a duck, it’s a duck.”
Governor Deal on Thursday directed authorities to target the gambling cafés and shut them down. “Today we are here united to send a clear message that we don’t want this industry in the state of Georgia,” he said, “and I am directing the state’s resources to eliminate it from our communities.”
Aside from allegedly violating the law, another problem Deal has with the gambling cafés is that they take business away from the state lottery, which helps fund the HOPE Scholarship. Earlier this year, Deal had a chance to sign a bill into law that would have explicitly banned those Internet cafés. However, he vetoed that bill because he thought there were technical legal flaws within it.