Matthew Haverstick, Managing Partner in the Firm’s Litigation Practice, represented Capital Vending Co., a supplier of Pace-O-Matic (POM) video game machines, before a seven-judge en banc Commonwealth Court panel which ruled that POM games were neither slot machines, nor constituted gambling. In 2019, agents with the State Police and the Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement seized three machines, plus a bag containing more than $500 from Champions Bar, claiming that the machines were gambling devices. The recent decision affirmed a ruling from the Dauphin County Court of Common Pleas, which had ordered several gaming machines to be returned after they had been seized by state law enforcement, and will likely have implications for a number of lawsuits challenging the legality of skill games.
“It makes statewide what we think has been the state of the law and the facts for years,” Haverstick said in The Legal Intelligencer. “Now even the doubters can’t deny that the Pace-O-Matic game is a legal skill game anywhere and everywhere it is in the commonwealth.”
Haverstick also noted that the company’s lawsuit alleging reputational harm as a result of the seizures, which has been stayed pending the outcome of this case, will be reactivated given the Commonwealth Court’s ruling.
To read the full article on the ruling, click here.
