They'll fold

Now that video poker has been outlawed in South Carolina, people who worked in the industry find they have been dealt a bad hand.

By TOM ZUCCO

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 3, 2000

BLACKSBURG, S.C. -- She knew it was coming. She'd heard it on the news, and it was all everyone at work was talking about for the last two months.

They were going to unplug the machines and take them away. Then she and Clyde would be out of a job.

But those gambling people are slick, Georgia Stroup figured. And rich. They'd file a lawsuit. Or put the squeeze on the politicians.

Sure, that was it. The politicians down in Columbia. Those smiling faces she'd seen on TV and on the billboards at election time. They'd come to their senses, she said, and do something right for a change.

But then the Broadway locked its doors. The Castle followed a few days later. And when she got to work Friday morning, Stroup looked across the road and saw a rental truck in front of the Cherokee. Men were lugging Pot O Gold machines out of the building.

"At the Castle, they just came in and herded all the employees out," Georgia said. "Just told them to go home. No "Thank you.' No nothin'."

Now it was her turn. On Friday, she began her last 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. shift at Treasure Island video poker parlor off I-85 just south of the North Carolina line.

At midnight, the grand experiment would be over. Video poker in South Carolina was folding. It would be the largest shutdown of a state's gambling industry in nearly a century. The machines, which allowed users to play a variety of poker games, could be played for as little as five cents a hand. But there was also a slot for bills -- ones, fives and tens -- and that's what most people bet.

Saturday would be a big day of change for the Palmetto State. After the poker machines fell silent, they were going to take down and fold the Confederate flag at the state house.

Outlawing video poker would be for the best. That's what everyone said anyway. The crime rate was rising, and too many people with too much to lose were getting hooked. It had to go.

But what about the estimated 15,000 people who worked in the industry? People like Georgia and Clyde. What, Georgia wondered, would they do?

Clyde is 77 and has had eight heart attacks. He worked two jobs all his life, but after his heart started giving out he couldn't work anymore. Except at Treasure Island. All he had to do there was sit in a room with five Pot O Gold machines, wipe them off now and then, and chat with the customers. He could still do that. He loved doing that. Gave him a reason to get up in the morning.

Georgia, Clyde's wife, is 61. She was also a room attendant. Like Clyde, she made $6.25 an hour. Other than Clyde's Social Security, it was the only income they had.

"When you lose that little bit," she said, "you lose a lot."

They've been married 25 years. They take care of each other. They read the Bible and watch Jeopardy! together.

They also just bought a house. Paid $47,000 for it. Their mortgage payments are $420 a month.

"We have a little saved up," Georgia said. "Probably enough for a couple of months of bills.

"I don't know what we're gonna do now.

"Something will come along, I guess."

Used to be there were two gas stations at the intersection of I-85 and County Road 29. If anyone stopped, and few did, it was a trucker or some tourist who needed directions.

A decade ago the state passed a law that allowed video poker, and slowly, the intersection changed. By last month, 11 video poker parlors were operating within a few hundred yards of each other.

Technically, the intersection and the parlors are located in Blacksburg, part of Cherokee County, S.C. But they're much closer to Grover, N.C., a town of 700 that's not on all maps.

The locals called it Las Grover.

The parlor owners chose places like Grover because of the heavy volume of traffic on the interstates, and because it was easy for people from North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee to make the drive. Forty-two percent of the state's 28,423 poker machines were in 10 border counties -- including Cherokee County.

Video poker was big business. The machine owners were raking it in at an annual rate of $3.3 billion. Games could be found blinking at mom-and-pop grocery stores, in service stations, fireworks stores, and bowling alleys. Some were in buildings made to look like mini-casinos.

The average machine grossed $23,727.

In Cherokee County, where the Blacksburg parlors are located, video poker brought in $450,000 in licensing fees last year. That helped the county buy new police cars and garbage trucks.

There were problems. The state limited payouts to $125 a day per player. But there was no limit on the amount a player could lose.

In August 1997, a woman left her 10-day-old baby in her car while she spent seven hours playing video poker in a casino next to the Georgia state line. The baby died and the woman pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter.

That and other horror stories prompted former governor David Beasley to label the industry the "crack cocaine of gambling" and call for an end to video poker.

Anti-gambling sentiment began to build. Video poker was blamed for giving the state a higher-than-normal number of gambling addicts. About five percent of people nationwide are problem gamblers. In South Carolina, the number was put at 10 percent.

Finally, under pressure from church groups, law enforcement, business leaders and other gambling opponents, the South Carolina legislature voted last year to end video gambling July 1 unless voters decided to keep the machines legal and enact new regulations. A referendum was set for November.

But a month before the vote, the state Supreme Court ruled the referendum was unconstitutional. The court left the ban in place.

Several lawsuits were filed, but the courts upheld the ban.

And that suits Grover mayor Bill Favell just fine. Favell lived in Tampa for 40 years before he moved back to his home state in 1995. He won a seat on the town council, then got himself elected mayor.

"We had people who couldn't even pay their water bill," Favell said. "One lady told me she lost her car and was on the verge of losing her house."

But it's crime that worries Favell most. That's because Grover has Ed Fagan. He's a competent and able policeman, but he's also the town's entire force.

"We haven't had but a few car break-ins, but in Cherokee County (S.C.) they were having three and four armed robberies a week," Favell said. "It brought an element of people who were going to hit it big all right. By robbery.

"We even had to lower the speed limit to 35 because people were rushing in here to lose their money.

"Funny ... most of them were coming out real slow."

As for the argument that people will be out of work, Favell says look around. There's work if you want it.

"Some say the parlors gave people who couldn't get work anywhere else a job. I don't know about that. They're offering $10 an hour to start over at Mayflower trucking. And at Wertz battery. Right up the road in Shelby (N.C.) they're begging for people to work in the textile mills.

"I'm 71 and I'm still working. I sell real estate. Those people could get jobs ... unless they're crippled or something."

What's going to happen to the buildings?

"There are only three permanent structures, the rest are like trailers.

"I don't know who could move in. They tried nude dancing, but that didn't last long. This is part of the Bible Belt, you know."

A state lottery is on the ballot for November. And from early indications, it will have enough support to pass.

A few minutes before 4, Georgia Stroup watched a couple waving their hands in front of a Pot O Gold machine. Fascinating, she said, what these people do. "Sometimes they cross themselves, sometimes they put hexes on the screen. I saw one woman dip her finers in an ash tray and rub them on the screen."

She is told of another place called Treasure Island. A beach town in Pinellas County, Florida.

"If you can find me a good job down there, call me and tell me," she said. "I'll put my house on the market and move. Clyde, too."

There were no tears or hugs when it was time to go. There was nothing left to say. Georgia simply gathered up her tote bag and purse and went home.

At midnight, all the state's video poker machines in 7,000 locations went dark.

Outside the Carribean, owners Claude Suber and John and Tami Halvorson were standing in the parking lot with a group of employees trying to figure out what to do next. At its peak, the parlor had 115 machines and employed 87 people.

Suber, who owns a textile mill in nearby Kings Mountain, N.C., and the Halvorsons, who own a trucking company, had sunk $1.3-million into the 4,900-square foot building.

They had been open just over a year but had paid $362,000 for a two-year license. The state says they'll get a refund.

"It's not just us and the employees who are getting hurt," Suber said. "The man who delivers Coca-Cola lost his job because his route has been eliminated. That shows how far down the food chain this goes."

Video poker is legal in some fashion in only seven states -- Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, Texas, Montana, California and West Virginia. The machines costs $7,000 or more, but some South Carolina operators say they'll be lucky to get $1,000 for them used.

That's not the only problem. Most gambling machines pay in coins. But South Carolina's poker machines issued tickets that had to be redeemed on site for money. Industry officials say refitting those machines to make cash payments would cost about $1,500 a machine.

Not good news for the owners of the Caribbean.

"We did everything exactly like they told us to," Suber said. "We never broke the law, we paid all our fees on time. Then they come in and do this.

"I don't know what we're going to do. Who's gonna want this stuff? We'll just have to sue the state and try to get some of it back."

One of the employees, a woman named Linda, laughed when she heard that.

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