Will Buffalo take a chance on the slot-like Moxie Mania game?
It’s called Moxie Mania, and if an Atlanta amusement company gets approval in Albany for the electronic game, thousands of the flashy machines could appear in bars, taverns and private clubs throughout New York State.
Making Buffalo its New York headquarters, officials of Pace-O-Matic showed the machine to city lawyers earlier this month, and made a similar presentation Friday to attorneys of the State Liquor Authority in Albany.
At stake are millions of dollars. The Ohio attorney general’s office said Pace-O-Matic had 4,000 machines in Ohio, and each brought in an estimated $1,000 a week. That’s $4 million each week before Ohio changed its laws in October to ban the games.
Pace-O-Matic has hired the Buffalo law firm of Hurwitz & Fine to make its case, and former Erie County Executive Joel A. Giambra, company officials say, is pitching his lobbying firm to represent Pace-O-Matic.
Giambra said Park Strategies does not discuss its clients, but said he knows Pace-O-Matic president Michael Pace and saw him on his recent visit to Buffalo.
Giambra also said he does not oppose gambling, even though he filed a lawsuit to stop the Seneca Nation’s Buffalo Creek Casino. He said the casino would have a negative impact on the Buffalo economy.
Moxie Mania looks like a slot machine. Patrons put money in it like a slot machine. And it makes payouts like a slot machine.
But don’t call it a slot machine, says company vice president Ron Carrara, who came to Buffalo on March 3 and showed the game to city officials with Pace-O-Matic president and founder Pace.
“There’s no correlation between the two of them at all,” Carrara said. “A slot machine is total random chance, and a skill game is absolutely what it says. It takes skill.”
The distinction is important. Games of chance are considered gambling in New York. Games of skill are not.
New York designates slot machines as Class III gambling, and in this area, the Seneca Nation of Indians has the exclusive right to operate slots. A spokesman for Seneca Gaming declined to comment.
Video lottery terminals, like those allowed in minicasinos at horse racing tracks, are considered Class II gambling, and again require state authorization.
Game of skill?
Pace-O-Matic wants Buffalo and the State Liquor Authority to classify Moxie Mania as a game of skill. Both the city and the state say they have the game under study.
SLA counsel Thomas J. Donohue, in a “opinion of counsel” issued earlier for authority commissioners, said the state’s penal law defines gambling.
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