Court to decide fate of bar game
Hearing Friday on Moxie Mania
In a cold, brick one-story warehouse on Military Road in Kenmore, rows of Moxie Mania machines sit unplugged with nowhere to go.
“There’s a hundred machines sitting here,” sighed Lou Riggio as he looked out at the new, upright video-game-sized machines, brightly emblazoned with lures of “CASH” prizes. “I have $400,000 worth of product sitting here that I can’t move.”
Riggio, 38, a self-described entrepreneur from Wheatfield, is the president of Excelsior Distributors. His company retains the exclusive rights to distribute and operate Moxie Mania, a video gaming machine produced by Georgia-based Pace-O-Matic. The games look like a fast-paced, complicated version of tic-tac-toe that can pay out anywhere from a few cents to hundreds of dollars to winners.
Since April, vendors working with Riggio have been installing the games in nearly 300 bars in Western New York and another 200 across upstate.
But that all came to a screeching halt when the State Liquor Authority board ruled late last month that the games were gambling devices — and therefore illegal — and told bar owners they would have to get rid of them.
Pace-O-Matic quickly sought a stay from a judge and won. The matter is scheduled to be taken up in an Albany courtroom Friday. So for now, Moxie Mania is still legal.
But ever since the SLA’s ruling, no bar owners have been willing to let the games into their businesses, and many are demanding they be taken out, Riggio said.
“That has had a dramatic impact on my business,” lamented Riggio, who said he and his investors have put up more than $1 million for Moxie Mania.
Riggio has reached out to State Sen. George Maziarz, R-Newfane, for help. Maziarz says he is outraged by the SLA’s actions.
“They are entrepreneurs,” Maziarz said of Riggio and his partners. “They did the right thing. This is an example of the state coming in, after the business has started, and pulling the rug out from under them.”
Maziarz is looking into introducing legislation that would make Moxie Mania legal.
Riggio explained that he heard about Moxie Mania from a friend who recently left Western New York for Atlanta.
He learned that Pace-O-Matic, which designs and manufactures video gaming machines for bars, had come up with a new bar game carefully designed to meet New York’s guidelines about what is and isn’t considered a gambling device.
He also learned that Pace-OMatic had run into problems with its games before. Ohio banned its Tic Tac Fruit games, deciding they were illegal slot machines.
Riggio learned about the issues in Ohio and was “a little” nervous about that. But he said he was assured that Moxie Mania was designed with New York’s laws in mind.
Riggio teamed up with his friend from Atlanta and a second Atlanta investor. He declined to name the two, saying the recent negative publicity about Moxie Mania has made them nervous.
Pace-O-Matic hired the Buffalo law firm of Hurwitz & Fine and former Erie County Executive Joel A. Giambra’s lobbying firm to make its case.
The game was shown to Buffalo’s corporation counsel, the Erie County district attorney, and the Erie County and Niagara County sheriffs. Riggio said everyone agreed that the games were within the law.
“Then we started going out to bar owners,” Riggio said, “and everybody was petrified. And I mean petrified.”
Bar owners were leery of the games. They felt Moxie Mania seemed too much like a slot machine.
“People I’ve known for 20 years — friends of mine — said, ‘Lou, I’m not putting the game in because the SLA will come in and shut me down,’ ” Riggio said.
Riggio went to his investors and Pace-O-Matic, and they decided to take it to the SLA.
The SLA’s lead counsel, Thomas J. Donohue, issued an opinion saying, “It is in my opinion that it would be considered a contest of skill, rather than chance, and therefore not be considered gambling.”
Donohue also noted that his opinion “is not binding on the members of the authority” and said that Pace-O-Matic could request a declaratory ruling from the SLA board.
Pace-O-Matic and Excelsior didn’t think that was necessary.
“We felt we had everything covered in terms of the lawfulness of what we were doing,” Riggio said.
Riggio’s vendors used the letter, along with another lengthy opinion drawn up by Pace-O-Matic’s lawyers, to convince bar owners that the machines were legal and got permission to install them.
Then in June, State Sen. Frank Padavan, R-Queens, a prominent gambling critic, heard about Moxie Mania and requested the SLA take up the issue. On Nov. 22, two members of the board voted that they were illegal. The chairman, Daniel B. Boyle, abstained from voting, saying he believes the SLA has no business determining whether a game is gambling or not. The vote meant Donohue’s opinion had been overturned and the game would be considered illegal.
Riggio was shocked.
“It doesn’t make sense,” he said.
He also questioned Padavan’s interest in the machines.
“I don’t think there’s one game in Sen. Padavan’s district . . . For whatever reason, he has a serious problem with what we’re doing,” Riggio said.
“I think the board was correct that it was a gambling apparatus,” Padavan told The Buffalo News. He acknowledged that he had never seen the game but said he was familiar with games like it.
Now, all Riggio can do is wait for Friday, when his lawyers take on the SLA in State Supreme Court.
“Very hopeful,” Riggio said of his feelings about the outcome of the court proceedings.
Log into MyBuffalo to post a comment
MyBuffalo is the new social network from Buffalo.com. Your MyBuffalo account lets you comment on and rate stories at buffalonews.com. You can also head over to mybuffalo.com to share your blog posts, stories, photos, and videos with the community. Join now or learn more.
Reader comments