Gambling in South Carolina
Gambling Law in South Carolina:
An Analysis of National Opinion and the South Carolina Code of Law
by Jacob Davis
Enforcement in the Spotlight
It was big news in April 2006 when Mt. Pleasant police cited 22 people after breaking up a high-stakes poker game in what papers called a “raid.”[1] In April 2008, it even made the news in Columbia when Hanahan police raided another underground game, citing an assistant prosecutor and seizing more than $40,000.[2] This kind of strict law enforcement, of laws that some say “go too far,”[3] has helped prompt state legislators to push for a loosening of gambling restrictions in South Carolina.
After a long and bitter fight to ban video poker, and perhaps an even uglier battle to establish a state “Education Lottery,” South Carolina citizens could be forgiven for shouting “Enough already!” to arguments over legalized gambling. Unfortunately, the recent well-publicized “raids” on “underground” poker games have brought the issue back to the forefront. Scarcely does an article appear in the newspapers (or online for that matter) without including the old saw that South Carolina law prohibits “playing Monopoly at [the] kitchen table.”[4] Never mind that it probably doesn’t, or that no evidence exists that anyone has ever even been ticketed for something so preposterous. Even the South Carolina Attorney General’s office is forced to joke that, “Candyland…is safe” in South Carolina.[5] Read more…
Recent Comments