Coming to a convenience store, strip mall, or even a standalone buildings near you soon: Sweepstakes gaming. Well, at least for now, subject to what the N.C. Supreme Court has to say about the matter. I had an article out last month over at the mothership examining the N.C. Court of Appeals ruling that set off the current sweepstakes parlor expansion. Bottom line:
The state argued that the law regulated conduct, not speech. The appeals court agreed that this is what the law tried to do, but that the “broad manner in which the statute attempt[ed] to regulate this conduct is problematic.”
Calabria wrote that the law allowed anyone to play the companies’ video games as long as the machines weren’t used to promote or conduct a sweepstakes. The companies also could conduct their sweepstakes legally as long as they didn’t notify winners on an “entertaining display” on a video screen. Thus, Calabria noted, what the law criminalized was a specific method of disseminating sweepstakes results.
The U.S. Supreme Court has recently ruled both that “the creation and dissemination of information are speech within the meaning of the First Amendment” and that video games are entitled to First Amendment protections.
“In light of these holdings, banning the dissemination of sweepstakes results through entertaining displays cannot be characterized as merely a regulation of conduct,” wrote Calabria for the appeals court.
“Instead, that portion of N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-306.4 which forbids ‘the reveal of a prize’ by means of an entertaining display directly regulates protected speech under the First Amendment.”
