Legislative committee approves bill draft aimed at removing skill games from grocery stores like Smith’s in Riverton

Correction: The photo that originally accompanied this article showed a ticket dispenser from the Wyoming Lottery – not the skill games the mayor referenced. Those skill games are located behind a partition near the liquor store at Smith’s.

(Cheyenne, WY) — Riverton Mayor Tim Hancock testified before a legislative committee this week, asking lawmakers to do something to address the recent appearance of skill based amusement games at the local Smith’s grocery store.

“I was stunned to see that,” Hancock told the Wyoming Legislature’s Select Committee on Gaming during a meeting this week. “It’s not an age restricted location. … If you have a child or anyone that’s walking through after they’ve checked out, they can see exactly what’s going (on).”

State law

State statute allows stores like Smith’s to host skill-based amusement games if the business is licensed to sell alcoholic liquor or malt beverages, Wyoming Gaming Commission Executive Director Nicholas Larramendy explained earlier in the meeting.

He also noted that, by statute, the Wyoming Gaming Commission has a “very limited” list of reasons it can use to deny an application for a skills-based amusement license.

“If they meet the qualifications and the definitions as written, that’s what we have to do,” Larramendy said. “With the way that the law is written, we don’t have the standing to deny (those applications).”

That’s why the Gaming Commission doesn’t currently notify local communities about pending skills-based amusement licenses, he added, explaining that, “in this instance, notification of the public or even an objection from the public may not ultimately change what the Commission has to do.”

Regardless, Hancock said it would have been nice if local residents had known about the license application at Smith’s ahead of time. 

“(That way) we’re not in a situation where, unbeknownst to me, unbeknownst to members of the public, unbeknownst to any of my staff, we walk into a local grocery store and there, accessible to anyone, is a gaming machine,” he said. “That’s my concern. … We are one of those communities that have that going on.”

Potential ‘crisis’

If local residents had been given a chance to comment on the license, Hancock guessed that “they probably would have chimed in and said they don’t want it.”

Others at the meeting agreed that a grocery store is not an appropriate location for gaming – including several people associated with skill games operations elsewhere in the state, and Wyoming Sen. John Kolb, R-Rock Springs, who referred to the situation as a “crisis” based on the potential for more stores like Smith’s to apply for licenses.

“It’s going to be a flood of new applicants,” Kolb said. “We never intended this to happen, (and) if we don’t address it … I see an upcoming catastrophe for the amount of machines going in.”

After working through several options to address the situation, at the end of the meeting the committee voted to draft a bill restricting skill-based amusement licenses to truck stops, smoke shops, or businesses that are licensed to sell alcohol “for consumption on the licensed or permitted premises.”

The proposal will now go to the Wyoming Legislature’s Management Council for further consideration ahead of next year’s legislative session.