From the street, the somewhat rundown business on Jonesboro Road looked like a gas station that also sold things like soft drinks and chips. Likewise, there was nothing out of the ordinary about nearby Main Street Grocery and an attached liquor store on Main Street. And the Sun Coin Laundry, also on Jonesboro Road, seemed to be simply a place to wash and dry clothes.
But Clayton County's district attorney and Forest Park police say all four businesses were venues for video gambling, often called video poker even though the games are not necessarily poker.
On Wednesday, Forest Park detectives collected $50,000 in cash and seized other assets at the businesses. Five people were arrested and authorities were looking for four others. The Clayton District Attorney's Office also filed documents to seize the four businesses and freeze bank accounts.
"We have gambling machines," Tewolde said as a police officer was checking him for weapons. "But we don't give no cash [prizes]. We give out items. Groceries."
Video gambling is a billion-dollar-a-year untaxed business in Georgia, with individual machines netting $35,000 a year, said Michael Lambros, an attorney who has helped prosecutors statewide with the civil cases that usually accompany the criminal cases.
And video gambling machines are everywhere, despite 10 years of trying to rid the state of them.
Video gambling was called a "cancer" in 2001 when then-Gov. Roy Barnes began the first efforts to rid the state of the machines, mostly because the addictive games were blamed for breadwinners who would spend entire paychecks in one sitting. The law limits prizes to values of less than $5 and specifically prohibits cash, alcohol, tobacco, firearms or lottery tickets.
Sgt. Mark Malueg of the Athens-Clarke County Police Department said undercover investigations that led to coordinated raids in March in Jefferson, Commerce and Arcade found payouts averaging $20 to $150, but there are reports of cash prizes of as much as $3,000.
"It's everywhere," Malueg said. "Very few gas stations you go into don't have them [the machines]."
The Georgia Amusement and Music Operators Association repeatedly has said players have control — pressing a button to stop rolling icons — and that makes the machines legal. The group also says the machines are only for entertainment and anyone giving case prizes is breaking the law.
The undercover investigations required to make a commercial gambling case take "a tremendous amount of resources" from law enforcement agencies that consider violent crime and drug enforcement their top priorities, GBI Director Vernon Keenan said.
"It's not going away, not until the laws are strengthened," Keenan said. "In many states video poker is just outlaws. Video poker machines become contraband. In Georgia you have to prove the device is being used for commercial gambling."
Keenan said some investigations have found clear evidence of criminal enterprises that send money to banks overseas. Those cases are referred to federal authorities.
"It's prolific," Clayton D.A. Tracy Graham Lawson said of the video gambling business. "We shoot one down and they come back another place."
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