Legislators ask Pennsylvania Supreme Court to extend skill games deadline to February 2027
In an eleventh-hour attempt, legislators appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Wednesday, asking for more time to work on bills to regulate "skill games" and keep them operating.
In June, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that skill games are slot machines, meaning they're subject to the same regulations as the machines found in casinos and truck stops.
The previous ruling set an Oct. 13, 2026, deadline for establishments to remove skill games or face penalties and potentially criminal charges for operating a gambling machine without a license.
Businesses have been advised to remove their machines before the deadline. Police set up a website for business owners to ask questions.
Legislators are asking the court to extend the deadline until Feb. 10, 2027, another 120 days, to allow time for a bill to pass through the House and Senate.
An attorney representing state Sens. Gene Yaw and Anthony Hardy Williams, and Reps. Danilo Burgos and Jonathan Fritz filed a petition Tuesday in the Supreme Court.
The legislators are working on a bill that is set to be introduced and would require statewide licensing for skill games, including a central monitoring system and a $500 monthly fee per terminal that would be directed to mass transit funding, infrastructure and volunteer fire companies.
"A brief extension of the stay would preserve the practical ability to move directly from the current status quo to a licensed, taxed, and regulated market capable of generating those public revenues promptly upon enactment, rather than after months of release, inspection, licensing, and redeployment proceedings," an attorney for the legislators wrote in the court filing.
Delaware County businesses bracing for economic impact
When a player wins at a skill game machine, a ticket comes out so that they can redeem it for cash. Custom America, a technology company in Upper Chichester, prints those tickets.
"We have multiple manufacturing facilities around the world," Nicola Ciarlante, CEO of Custom America, said. "Our global headquarters is in Parma, Italy."
Ciarlante said his company makes thousands of printers for the skill game machine industry. After the state Supreme Court ruled that skill games are slot machines that only casinos and licensed truck stops can operate, part of his business has come to a standstill.
"Every one of our customers in Pennsylvania has placed their orders on hold," Ciarlante said.
Unless lawmakers act, state police will begin removing skill game machines from most businesses on Oct. 14. For Custom America, it would be a hit to its bottom line.
"To quantify, it's going to be very difficult," Ciarlante said. "Tens of millions of dollars."
Twenty-one people work at Custom America's Boothwyn office. Ciarlante said he isn't expecting layoffs, but if skill games disappear, he said, Custom America would have to lean more heavily on other parts of its business, like document scanners and airport printers.
"If you go to Philadelphia Airport, most of the kiosks have our printers inside of them, our behind-the-counter, parking garages," Ciarlante said. "We're so diversified that the impact is not on our employees. It's on the revenue streams, the tax dollars, the importation of products."
Ciarlante is hoping lawmakers can find a way to regulate the machines so mom-and-pop shops can still have them.
"I don't want to see anyone go out of business and families lose their incomes," Ciarlante said.
