On Monday, Jan 25th, at 10:00 AM the SD House Commerce and Energy committee will take on 3 bills.
Both of these bills are gaming related.
HB 1057 (SoDakLiberty Posts) – Revise the rule-making authority of the South Dakota Commission on Gaming.
SoDakLiberty Stance: Undecided
Prime Sponsors: Rep Timothy Johns (R, Dist 31) and Sen Bob Ewing (R, Dist 31) are the prime sponsors.
This bill appears to be a cleanup to place the ability to promulgate rules related to Limited card games, slot machines, craps, roulette, and keno in the correct portion of codified law.
Section 1 of the bill removes the below sentence from the definitions of Blackjack and Poker (defined in SDCL 42-7B-4):
The commission may promulgate rules pursuant to chapter 1-26 authorizing variations of the game
Section 2 of the bill then adds the following to SDCL 42-7B-7, which is where the authority to promulgate rules resides:
variations of limited card games, craps or roulette
HB 1048 (SoDakLiberty Posts) – Revise certain provisions regarding the authority of the South Dakota Lottery Commission to regulate video lottery.
SoDakLiberty Stance: Opposed
Prime Sponsors: The Committee on Commerce and Energy is the prime sponsor at the request of the Department of Revenue.
This is a bill I would support, but it has one bad section in it that reduces transparency. If the anti-transparency portion is amended out I think the other changes would be good. Here is what I said about the bill when it was prefiled:
This bill would make a few changes to the video lottery machines in South Dakota:
- Each video lottery establishment would be allowed up to 15 machines, instead of the 10 currently set in law. But the Commission may set additional rules for establishments that want those five extra machines.
- The max bet of $2 on video lottery machines would increase to $5.
- The maximum allowed payout for play would raise to $25,000. Currently it appears to be set to $1,000 per bet.
Personally I don’t care about the above changes, and have no problems with those changes.
But I do have a problem with this section being added to the Lottery Commissions exemptions for open meetings:
(5) Discussing business strategies, marketing strategies, pricing strategies, or financial matters, if public discussion may be harmful to the competitive position of a licensee, an applicant, or the lottery.
Earlier today Bob Mercer noted this change would allow “the commission to conduct much of its business in private.” Personally I think there are already too many exceptions in state law regarding open meetings. I could maybe see this as a good change if it was only about protecting a licensee or applicant. But protecting the privacy of the lottery makes no sense. The “lottery” in this case is part of the state, part of a public entity funded by the taxpayers.
Hopefully that part is amended out during the committee process.
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