Re: Appeal No. 102,786: Dissmeyer et al. v. State of Kansas
TOPEKA—The Supreme Court today struck down a state statute making so-called "gray machines" illegal under Kansas gaming law as unconstitutionally too broad because it could include every mechanical device from spinners for children's games to a personal computer that has the capability of being used for gambling.
The decision came in a lawsuit by three persons who own or lease amusement game machines in Wyandotte County. Plaintiffs David A. Dissmeyer, Lester L. Lawson, and Terry Mitchell, amusement game owners or operators, filed the suit to enjoin the Kansas Lottery from enforcing a statute making it a felony to own or operate the gray machines. The machines are prohibited if they are mechanical, electro-mechanical, or electronic and capable of being used for gambling, but not a part of the state sanctioned lottery enterprises.
Justice Eric S. Rosen, writing for a unanimous Court, said under the statute in question, "Computers with Internet connections are electronic devices that can be used for online gambling. Computers without Internet connections are electronic devices that can be used to play games on which bets can be placed. The computer on which this opinion was drafted is a gray machine because it is electronic, it is capable of being used for gambling, and it is not linked to a lottery central computer system," Justice Rosen wrote.
"Telephones can be used for making or placing bets. Radios and televisions are electronic devices that can be used to listen and watch sporting events with consequent gambling applications. Automobiles can be raced and used in other ways that may be subject to gambling." He added, both "Chutes and Ladders and Twister children's games use spinners, which are mechanical devices and which can, of course, be used for gambling."
The Court noted that the statute allows the executive director of the Kansas Lottery to confiscate any device that is defined as a gray machine. "This statute, as it is currently drafted, essentially deprives citizens and businesses in Kansas of their fundamental rights to own property," Rosen wrote.
"The statutes make it a criminal act to have any of those devices in a place for public use, and they authorize the executive director to confiscate any of those devices even if they are hidden away in the basement closet of a citizen's home," he wrote.
The Court also noted that other statutes prohibiting the possession of actual gambling devices such as a slot machine is a class B misdemeanor, while the statute against maintaining a pinball machine or computer that "might be used" as a gambling device is a felony. "This suggests that no rational basis exists for the sweeping definition of gray machines that the legislature has adopted," the Court concluded.