Particularly if you own a pinball machine. From the LA Times:
Anaheim officials are doing a little housekeeping and whittling down the city’s bulky municipal code. Tonight, the City Council is scheduled to consider repealing or modifying several ordinances that officials call outdated, redundant or just plain silly.
The unlucky task of poring through decades of laws and thousands of ordinances fell to City Atty. Jack White, who said he had collected arcane gems that may come in handy only at cocktail parties or if he became a “Jeopardy!” contestant.
He knows, for example, that in the 1940s and ’50s, pinball was considered gambling.
The change in the law is welcome news for Terry McIntire, an owner of Orange County Game Distributors Inc., who said that if authorities cited him for all his pinball machines, “we would be old and gray by the time we got out” of jail.
In most cases, authorities realized the absurdities of these ordinances and stopped enforcing them years ago.
Pinball Desperados in Anaheim Will Be Allowed to Play at Full Tilt
During my research for Uneasy Convictions, I learned that many slot manufacturers evaded the Johnson Act, the 1950 law that halted the interstate shipment of slots, by switching to “amusement” devices whose “free games” could be redeemed for cash. In 1961, when RFK pushed for new anti-gambling laws (including the Wire Act), he also spoke out against pinball machines. So this was actually a pretty common theme of anti-gamblers in the 1950s and 1960s.
Even now, the line between “amusement” and gambling is thinner than we think. Is there that much difference between a slot machine and redemption games? Some would argue no.