Twenty minutes from uptown Charlotte, near Carowinds Boulevard in Fort Mill, two of the largest gaming halls in South Carolina buzz with activity 24 hours a day. The Carousel Shopping Center, a faded strip mall, has found new life as a string of poker parlors with 120 gaming machines. A mile away, the Broadway houses 90 machines under one roof. Both establishments rely heavily on Charlotte players. You just forget about what's going on around you,'' said George McKinley, a Charlotte resident who plays in Fort Mill several times a month.
Losers walk away.
Winners print out a slip, and an attendant pays them off in cash. The odds favor the owners. On average, a player will lose 20 cents to 30 cents on every dollar, according to state figures. And that number is sure to leap as machines grow like jackpots in a game of Joker Poker. But operators sued and got the ban overturned.