Many Wyoming bar owners are shutting down their shake-a-days and football boards after the passage of a new law clarifying state gambling restrictions.
Those who spoke to Cowboy State Daily blamed Senate File 44, a gambling bill that passed the Legislature with almost no resistance in March and became an active law July 1.
“The way it stands now, it is illegal to play a game of bingo in a bar,” said Cheryl Burkhardt, who’s owned The Office Saloon in Gillette for 12 years. “Seems like a lot of government overreach.”
Shake-a-day is a dice game in which bar patrons may pay, as one example, $1 to shake five dice. In some bars, a three-of-a-kind earns a free drink, a four-of-a-kind a free meal, and a five-of-a-kind the whole pot.
Burkhardt said her bar’s “little games” like shake-a-day don’t yield any cut to the bar itself, though they are a draw for patrons.
She believes lawmakers “tilt the favor completely to casinos,” said Burkhardt, whose town is a hot spot for state-sanctioned gambling.
“Eighty-plus machines in each (casino). One gives away free food, cheap beer,” she said. “And I’m supposed to run a bar and compete against that; no one’s going to come out and pay me for a meal or a drink when they can get it cheap or free at the casino.”
Patricia Caywood, owner of The Parkman Bar and Grill in Parkman, said she never made a dime from shake-a-day.
“It’s just for the patrons’ fun,” she said, adding that patrons have played the game at her bar for the five-and-a-half years she’s owned it.
Parkman posted a banner this week to Facebook saying, “Bye-Bye Shake-A-Day, the State in all their glory has decided no one can play the ole’ timers game anymore.”
The bar is hosting an Oct. 17 all-day shake-a-day game until the pot is gone, the post says.
Caywood said no one from the state or the Wyoming Gaming Commission came to crack down on her bar. She just doesn’t want to risk the consequences the new law could bring, she said.
Tyler Bennett, owner of the No Name Bar of Sheridan, said the bar has held football pools during the season, as well as shake-a-day games. Bennett said the bar doesn’t take a cut, “it’s just entertaining for the customers.”
His bar is planning to empty the shake-a-day pot Oct. 10, its Facebook page says.
“I’m 44 and ever since I was allowed in bars, there’s been shake-a-days,” he said. “Now we’ve got a Wyoming lottery and gaming halls all over the place, but we’re not letting people do a small-stakes game of chance like that?”
Already Illegal
Wyoming Gaming Commission Director Nick Larramendy told Cowboy State Daily shake-a-days were already illegal “for years” even before the passage of SF 44.
But the bill clarified the ban, he noted.
Larramendy emphasized a two-fold point: Shake-a-days aren’t a top priority for the commission or law enforcement – but hosting and playing them is still illegal.
The stakes are high. For the player, illegal gambling is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail and $750 in fines. For the host it’s a felony punishable by up to three years in prison and $3,000, but only if the host plans to derive a profit from the game.
“I will tell you, our office has not sent any cease and desist letters for shake-a-day. We have not presented any cases to prosecutors for shake-a-day,” said Larramendy. “Businesses deciding to s hut down are doing that – I think – really understanding what the law does say now, and they wouldn’t want to risk a felony. Which is smart, quite honestly.”
The gaming commission has confirmed to inquiring bar owners that shake-a-days and football boards are illegal, Larramendy said.
Besides the greater clarity now in law, people might be more animated about long-standing gambling bans now because, for the past five or six years, Wyoming has dedicated a whole agency to enforcing them, said Larramendy, referencing the commission.
The vast majority of the commission’s investigation, he added, “is complaint driven,” rather than a sweep method.
Not The Plan
Sen. John Kolb, R-Rock Springs, co-chairs the Select Gaming Committee that built the initial draft of Senate File 44.
He said the plan was never to shut down shake-a-days, though they appear to be illegal after all.
“If you’re going to have gaming between friends, that’s legal,” said Kolb. “But if you’re going to have an advertised game, or the business is deriving a profit, that’s gambling.”
On a related note, said Kolb, his committee is looking to legalize “progressive” gaming, potentially.
That includes bar-top game Queen of Hearts, which is a progressive game because wagers can roll over into the next jackpot.
Bar owners who host charitable Queen of Hearts games voiced shock to Cowboy State Daily in May upon learning the state considers that game illegal, too.
Poker Halls
Rep. Jayme Lien, R-Casper, who also co-chairs the committee, told Cowboy State Daily that Wyoming law enforcers already considered bar games generally illegal, but prosecutors and others sought clarity from the Legislature, which prompted SF44’s passage.
And that push for clarity stemmed from professional poker halls in Laramie County, where the “house” tried to run under an exemption allowing gambling among friends, said Larramendy.
Lien cited the 1985 Wyoming Supreme Court Case 37 Gambling Devices v. Wyoming.
The Cheyenne Police Department had called for the destruction of gambling devices found at an Elk’s lodge. A trustee of the Elk’s chapter mentioned in court that Elk’s is a nonprofit group and should fall under a 1977 exemption for non-profit and charity groups running games.
But that argument was raised in earnest weeks after the Cheyenne-based judge who also ordered the devices destroyed had ruled on the case.
The Bill …
Senate File 44 has multiple facets. For example, it gave Wyoming a definition for “bona fide social relationship,” so that professional gamblers can’t claim that they’re just playing among friends, which is legal.
The definition says bona fide social relationships “shall not include” a relationship that has arisen for the purpose of gambling.
But the bill may cut against bars in a different section: its list of carveouts for illegal gambling.
It adds cards, dice, and balls to its laundry list of devices used in illegal gambling.
It says that any game is not illegal gambling if it is:
- Incidental to a bona fide social relationship,
- Played by real people only,
- Conducted in a private manner, at a private place that isn’t funded mainly by gaming profits,
- Not advertised or otherwise open to public participation,
- Not yielding a house-stye cut to any game host, and
- No one involved earns anything from it except the direct realization of winnings.
The “and” in that list means that for a game to be exempt from Wyoming’s criminal gambling prosecutions, it would have to possess all the features listed, not just one or two.
That is, unless it’s carved out elsewhere in law, like skill games, charity bingo and pull tabs, some charitable Calcutta wagering, antique gambling devices in private homes, the Wyoming lottery, hunting license raffle, online sports betting, fantasy sports contests, and raffles that yield all their proceeds to charity after supplies and winnings.
State law also authorizes certain pari-mutuel wagering including on- and off-track horse race betting; plus historic horse racing machines.
Larramendy reasoned that people playing shake-a-day – unless they ran their own game exclusive only to a friend group – could not fit under the “bona fide social relationship” exemption because shake-a-day is open to anyone including strangers, playing in passing.
He suggested that bar owners concerned about state law reach out to legislators.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
