TEXAS HOLDEM ONLINE POKER

A draft bill written by the industry offers to give sheriff's departments $1,000 for each of the estimated 12,000 machines in the state. The proposal also offers $2 million a year to the state Alcohol Law Enforcement Division and includes tighter restrictions to weed out operators who break the law.

"The industry is just as disgusted with the illegal activities that are taking place in the name of video poker as anybody else is," said Theresa Kostrzewa, one of three lobbyists representing the N.C. Amusement Machine Association. "And they are committed to pay their own money to get it cleaned up so the legal people can stay in business."

The N.C. Sheriffs' Association has unanimously opposed the machines, a stand that helped build support for state Senate votes in 2002 and 2003 to ban the machines.

The House has yet to move on the bill, mostly because Democratic Speaker Jim Black opposes it.

Now, some sheriffs say that if the machines aren't going away, law enforcement ought to get some money from the industry to regulate them.

"I am not pushing these machines," Guilford County Sheriff B.J. Barnes said. "What I am pushing is, if we are going to have these machines and the legislature is not going to do anything about them, then (video poker operators) should be paying for themselves."

Guilford has roughly 500 machines, which would translate to a $500,000 annual payment. Bordering Rockingham County has about 220 machines, and Sheriff Sam Page said he would be hard pressed to turn down $220,000.

"When times are tough, it would be hard to tell my county, `I've just turned down $220,000 in enforcement money, and I'm going to go to you for tax dollars,' " he said.

Others say the extra money isn't worth the hassle of trying to stop the illegal payoffs and chronic gambling that the machines bring.

Sheriff Eddie Cathey of Union County said he has seized nine of the 100 or so machines in his county during his 18 months in office. He has taken calls from wives who are tired of seeing their husbands gamble their paychecks away.

"To accept the money would be the easy way out _ to accept that gambling can't be controlled," he said. "Maybe until I got a taste of the gaming industry I might could have been persuaded, but after a year and a half, it's no way."

The draft bill circulating among some sheriffs keeps in place the limit on the number of machines that the legislature passed in 2000. And it would not change the payouts: The machines can offer only as much as $10 in prizes.

It would require machines to register how much money they take in and pay out.

The most recent data available shows that for the first nine months of 2001 the machines took in $85 million and paid out nearly $43 million in prizes.

Each machine also would have a permanent serial number, and machine owners would be required to undergo criminal background checks.

The bill anticipates that money given to sheriffs would be more than enough to enforce the law. It requires them to use the money for enforcement, but allows any surplus to go toward "any other law enforcement purposes."

Machine owners also would be charged an annual $5,000 privilege tax, and establishments that have the machines would pay an annual $500 tax. That money would go to the state Alcohol Law Enforcement Division.

Legislators who want to ban video poker say they aren't swayed by the industry proposal. They said they doubt that sheriffs would aggressively enforce violations if it resulted in cutting their agencies' incomes.