“I could have just skipped the casinos and bought a bunch of gas stations,” he said. Meanwhile, it cost his organization $5 million to obtain a state casino license to allow slot machines. Morgan said it galls him that a skill game machine - which is considered a game of “skill” rather than a game of “chance” like a slot machine - can be installed after obtaining a $250 state sticker.

“For a state that’s so anti-gambling, to have something that’s the equivalent of a slot machine everywhere, it really is astounding,” said Lance Morgan, president and CEO of Ho-Chunk Inc., which operates the 1-year-old WarHorse Casino in Lincoln. The rapid expansion is drawing the concern of state legislators, people who counsel problem gamblers and operators of the state’s fledgling casino industry, who see skill games as unregulated and under-taxed competition. And about 900 more skill games have obtained state permits and have yet to be installed. 1, an additional 1,113 skill games have been installed across the state - a growth rate of 27%. State statistics indicate that 4,752 such video machines are now located in nearly 1,600 retail locations across Nebraska, from convenience stores, to grocery stores, to restaurants and bars. What’s not hard now is finding one of these skill games. “It’s a little rush when you win,” he said. “Win Big” beckons the sign on the U-Stop Convenience store at 13th and South Streets in Lincoln, a location where skill games were only recently installed. Seda wasn’t winning today, but he said he once put $3 into a machine in Norfolk and, on plays costing 25 cents each, eventually lined up the characters to win $6,000. “It’s something to do,” said 28-year-old Gregorio Seda, who, on his day off, was pushing the buttons on a video machine called “The Buffalo Game,” causing figures of buffalo, eagles and deer to tumble on the screen like a video slot machine. The messages don’t refer to the loaves of breads and six-packs of beer that fill the aisles of the store, but to three so-called “skill games” tucked in a corner. LINCOLN - The poster on the side of the U-Stop convenience store in south Lincoln proclaims “win big.” Just inside the business, another sign flashes “win cash.”

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