Opinion ID: 1165241
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Gambling device.

Text: Under ORS 167.147, the basis of one of the two offenses of which defendant was convicted, one commits a crime if, with the requisite knowledge and belief, one possesses or enters into various transactions concerning a slot machine or any other gambling device. [1] As defendant was not charged with possession of a slot machine, the charge depends on the definition of a gambling device. This is found in ORS 167.117(5): `Gambling device' means any device, machine, paraphernalia or equipment that is used or usable in the playing phases of unlawful gambling, whether it consists of gambling between persons or gambling by a person involving the playing of a machine. Lottery tickets, policy slips and other items used in the playing phases of lottery and policy schemes are not gambling devices within this definition. Amusement devices which do not return to the operator or player thereof anything but free additional games or plays shall not be considered to be gambling devices. Defendant relies on the final sentence to show that the machines in his tavern were excluded from the definition of gambling device, because the machines themselves returned nothing but free additional games or plays to the players. Therefore, he argues he could not be guilty of possession of a gambling device under ORS 167.147. A majority of the Court of Appeals reached a different interpretation in State v. Wright, supra , which that court reaffirmed in the present case. It read the definition of gambling device, above, to mean that free-play amusement devices are not per se gambling devices, but that the statute nevertheless covers those machines which are mechanically free-play `amusement devices' but used as gambling devices. 21 Or. App. at 667, 537 P.2d 130. Chief Judge Schwab dissented on the ground that this interpretation read the last sentence of the definition out of the statute. 21 Or. App. at 669, 537 P.2d 130. There is no question that a mechanical amusement device, like cards or dice, could fall within the definition of gambling device in the first sentence of ORS 167.117(5) whenever it is used or usable in the playing phases of unlawful gambling. The majority in Wright read the exclusion in the last sentence as if it said that amusement devices shall not be considered to be gambling devices merely by virtue of the fact that they return free additional games or plays. But that is not what the text says. Literally, it states that amusement devices which return no more than additional free games or plays shall not be considered to be within subsection (5)'s definition of a gambling device, regardless whether they are used or usable as such. [2] The Wright court believed, however, that its reading was compelled by the legislative history. We do not reach the same conclusion. The legislative history is reviewed in the majority and dissenting opinions in Wright and need only be summarized here. The Criminal Law Revision Commission in 1970 proposed to include free-play machines in the prohibition of gambling. When the proposed Criminal Code came before the 1971 Legislative Assembly, lobbyists for the amusement industry and localities which taxed pinball machines first persuaded the senate committee to eliminate a provision that would bring free games within the term something of value in defining gambling. Once this provision had been rejected, the free-play feature no longer would suffice to make an amusement device a gambling device. There was no need thereafter to add the final sentence to the definition of gambling device in order to avoid including free-play machines per se, as the Wright majority thought, unless the proponents of the amendment sought mere redundancy from an excess of caution. [3] There is no reason to believe that this is all the proponents sought. If a machine is a gambling device it is subject to summary seizure and eventual forfeiture. ORS 167.162. It seems more probable that the sellers, lessors, or owners of free-play machines wished to exempt the machines entirely from this risk than that the fate of the machine would depend on whether it was usable or even used as a gambling device by others. The Wright court's construction of the statute may allow more effective control of gambling devices than a law that differentiates whether a machine itself pays the successful player or a bartender does so. It may or may not represent a better policy. That is a matter for the legislature, not for the court. To the owners of free-play machines, the difference would be important, and we think that the legislature acceded to their wish when it adopted the final sentence of ORS 167.117(5). [4] Because the state excludes free-play machines from the definition of gambling device, defendant's conviction for possession of gambling devices must be reversed.