The state of Ohio is once again engaged in battle with bar owners and distributors of a popular bar-top video game known as “Tic-Tac-Fruit.” Tic-Tac-Fruit first ran into trouble with the state in 2006 when police raided more than a dozen bars, unplugging the slot machine-like video games and confiscating thousands of dollars in cash.
In Ohio, slots gambling is illegal, but distributors of Tic-Tac-Fruit previously claimed that the game is based on skill, which put it outside the reach of laws targeted at games of chance. However, current Ohio law states that a player’s ability must have at least a “50 percent” bearing on the outcome to be considered a game of skill. Ohio state prosecutors earlier proved that even a perfectly played game of Tic-Tac-Fruit can result in the loss of money.
According to the Pittsburg Post-Gazette:
The game works like this — you feed in your money, then video fruit strips spin, as they would in a regular slot machine. When they stop, you’re left with a nine-square box that resembles a tic-tac-toe board.
The “skill” comes in deciding, as a clock ticks, which of the squares to turn into a wild card in order to produce three in a row of a certain fruit. Rows of lemons and cherries drain your account. Plums and oranges fatten it. If you’re ahead when you quit, you can redeem points for cash.
In order to circumvent Ohio’s gambling laws, Tic-Tac-Fruit machines no longer provide cash payouts. Instead, the machines allow players to redeem “points” for $10 Speedway gas cards, which distributors claim are “prizes” well within the realm of safe rewards. However, Matt Lampke, an assistant Ohio attorney general, said that the gas cards are prohibited as prizes under a law passed last year.
The first decision by the Ohio Liquor Control Commission for the new “gas card cases” is due this month.
