Greg Miller
By Felix GilletteThe Interior of a one-story building, on the edge of a shopping centre of the band at the center of Florida, Joy Baker computes the total sum of the bet in the morning. It is almost noon, and it is down $5. Not bad. Her husband, Tony, is a few feet further away. "It's more fun, we had in the 1920s," said Joy, which is 78 and former. "In our time, we cannot walk." You cannot pay to go to the cinema. It gives us a reason to get up in the morning. ?
Tony agrees. "We enjoy it," he said. "We are very bitter if politicians hold we." I will take it personally. ?
It is a Wednesday morning in mid-March, and bakers are sitting in Jacks, a new type of neighborhood business that is flourishing in malls across America and Florida. Jacks bills itself as a "Center and Internet café Business", but it looks more like a casino of pop-up Windows.
Jacks is about the size of a neighborhood deli. There is a side bar and convenience store to the corner. Inside, card giant game decorate the walls. The room is filled with about 30 desktops. Here and there, men and women sitting in Office chairs and tap into computers. They are playing games "sweepstakes" that simulate traditional look and feel of slot machines. Lines of symbols - cherries, lucky sevens, four - leaf clovers - tumble with every click of the mouse.
John Pate, a 50 years bearing a t-shirt of Harley-Davidson, said that it is the equivalent of 60 cents per bet spin. "This place is fairly relaxed, said Pate." You can come here and get your mind off everything. You're not going to win the mortgage. You're not going to lose the mortgage. "It is fairly harmless."
Application of local law is in disagreement. Jacks is located in the city of Casselberry, in the heart of the County of Seminole, a former-producing region of celery is now a suburb of Orlando in the vicinity. For the past two years, the local sheriff's Department squad has studied Jacks and seven other similar businesses around the County for potentially breach of the prohibitions of the State in the game. Cafe owners claim that what they offer is not technically game but rather a form of promotions "sweepstakes", which are legal under the law of the State Florida. In January, after consultation with the Department of the Sheriff, the five members of the local County Commission adopted an order to stop the mini-casinos.
The legal struggle did not end there. As the Commissioners quickly learned, with local officials in the whole of the United States, get rid of cybercafes sweepstakes is not easy. Shortly after the passage of the order, the Commissioners have been affected by several civil suits filed in Federal Court. A lawyer representing a string of cafes sweepstakes, whose headquarters is in St. Augustine first amendment filed a complaint of 49 pages alleging, among other things, that the order unfairly restricted rights to freedom of expression cafés. A lawyer working for a company of software draws lots in New Jersey filed a complaint of 20 pages, alleging that the Commissioners had violated the clause of the Constitution of United States trade.
More than two months later, the County of Seminole expected a decision of the Court. In the meantime, the sweepstakes cafes remain open.
The fight on the legality of pop-up in the County of Seminole casino is part of a wider battle fought for six years in counties across the country, North Carolina, Texas, Massachusetts. On the way, cops have raided in the many cafés sweepstakes, computers confiscated and seized full cash safes. In September, the cops in Virginia Beach, Virginia, a descent in game rooms a dozen and confiscated computers more than 400. In March, police in West Valley City, Utah, close two sweepstakes cafes, detained 67 people and seized 80 computers. Legislators in North Carolina passed a law prohibiting the business model of last year. In February, Virginia did the same. In April, Massachusetts Attorney General submitted emergency regulations to close business.
And yet the sweepstakes cafes keep spread.
