Court Ruling: Are Eight-Liners Legal in Texas?
The Second Court of Appeals in Fort Worth addressed the issue of eight-liners in Texas in City of Fort Worth v. Rylie, No. 02-17-00185-CV (Tex. App.—Fort Worth Mar. 17, 2022) (op. on remand). The issue was whether eight-liner gambling machines are unconstitutional or illegal.
Short Answer: Eight-Liners are illegal in Texas. The Second Court of Appeals held they are unconstitutional lotteries, and in 2024 the Texas Supreme Court declined to review that ruling—leaving it in place.
¿Qué son las máquinas Eight-Liner?
Una máquina de ocho cilindros es una máquina recreativa electrónica parecida a una tragaperras. Dependiendo del tipo de máquina, un jugador suele "ganar" si se alinea una fila horizontal, vertical o diagonal de objetos.
Texas law forbids gambling devices such as eight-liners from awarding cash prizes. However, an exception commonly referred to as the ‘fuzzy animal’ exception allows operators to award certain non-cash prizes of limited value.
The Texas Constitution commands that the legislature pass laws that prohibit lotteries. Since 1845 the Texas Constitution has continuously prohibited lotteries. The word ‘lottery’ includes various activities that involve (at minimum) the payment of consideration for a chance to win a prize. Case law has stated that the activity’s name itself makes no difference—an activity can be considered a lottery when the element of chance is connected with or enters into the distribution of its prizes.
Even with the best of intentions, the state legislature cannot sanction a lottery of any type; a constitutional amendment is necessary. This has happened before. For instance, the legislature proposed and voters approved a 1980 constitutional amendment to allow charitable bingo. This authorized the legislature to allow and regulate “bingo games conducted by a church, synagogue, religious society, volunteer fire department, nonprofit veterans’ organization, fraternal organization, or a nonprofit organization supporting medical research or treatment programs.” Later amendments allowed ‘charitable raffles’ to be held by the same types of organizations and authorized the state lottery. As it currently stands, these are the only types of lotteries the Texas Constitution allows.
La exclusión de los animales difusos
Texas authorities have concluded that slot machines or eight-liners constitute lotteries; in Queen v. State the court held as a matter of law that such machines are lotteries. Eight-liners generally operate as video slot machines. In 1995, the legislature enacted an exclusion by adding Section 47.01(4)(B) to the Penal Code. This was aimed at amusement centers such as Chuck E. Cheese, Dave & Buster’s, and others with electronic and mechanical games that could arguably constitute lotteries or gambling devices. The exclusion applies to a contrivance “designed, made, and adapted solely for amusement purposes if the contrivance rewards the player exclusively with noncash merchandise prizes, toys, or novelties, or a representation of value redeemable for those items, that have a wholesale value available from a single play of the game or device of not more than 10 times the amount charged to play the game or device once or $5, whichever is less.”
Eight-liner owners relied on this fuzzy-animal exclusion to argue that their machines are not illegal gambling devices. Depending on how eight-liners awarded prizes, that argument had varying levels of success or failure. State v. $1,760.00 in U.S. Currency held that certain machines did not fall within the exclusion because the distributed tickets were not redeemable exclusively for noncash merchandise prizes, toys, or novelties.
The Court concluded that with precedent stretching back more than a century, there is no doubt that eight-liners are lotteries and that, without an amendment to the Texas Constitution, they are forbidden. The Second Court of Appeals was not swayed by the three arguments made in this case:
Losing Argument 1: Legislature can’t define around the constitution
The operators asserted that because the Texas Constitution doesn’t define ‘lottery,’ the legislature is free to decide within reason what the word means, just as it can establish and define criminal offenses and applicable defenses. They argued the fuzzy-animal exclusion represents nothing more than a proper exercise of the legislature’s power to establish the definitional contours of lotteries. The Court disagreed, explaining that it considers “the intent of the people who adopted it,” but because discerning long-ago intent is difficult, it must give effect to the constitution’s plain language. By 1876, a lottery was understood to involve the elements of chance, consideration, and prize. Because the operators stipulated that their eight-liners award prizes by chance and for consideration, the machines are lotteries, and the legislature cannot define around that fact. The legislature is not empowered to remove from the definition of ‘lottery’ a game that plainly fits the constitutional meaning of ‘lottery.’
Losing Argument 2: The fact that not all gambling is a lottery is irrelevant here
The operators contended that while all lotteries are a form of gambling, not all forms of gambling are lotteries. They pointed to Stanley v. State, in which a marble machine was not found to be a lottery, and deduced that the question of what is and is not a lottery does not distill to a handy three-part test. The Court deemed this irrelevant: in Stanley, the machine was never described, and the tripartite test was never mentioned. In any event, the operators did not sufficiently explain what elements beyond chance, consideration, and prize are pertinent to whether their eight-liners are unconstitutional lotteries. The Court concluded that what is and is not a lottery does, in fact, distill to a handy three-part test.
Losing Argument 3: The 1980 constitutional amendment didn’t change the fact that eight-liners are lotteries
Before 1980, Article III, Section 47 read: “The Legislature shall pass laws prohibiting the establishment of lotteries and gift enterprises in this State, as well as the sale of tickets in lotteries, gift enterprises or other evasions involving the lottery principle, established or existing in other States.” After charitable bingo was approved in 1980—and charitable raffles and the state lottery were approved later—the section now reads: “The Legislature shall pass laws prohibiting lotteries and gift enterprises in this State other than those authorized by Subsections (b), (d), (d-1), and (e) of this section.” The operators argued legal significance in the 1980 deletion of language about lottery ‘evasions,’ and the Court conceded it may be significant in some hypotheticals. However, eight-liners are not evasions involving the lottery principle—they are lotteries, plain and simple.
What Happened After the 2022 Ruling
The case has a long procedural history. It began when Fort Worth adopted strict game-room regulations in 2014 and was sued by operators who claimed the ordinances were preempted by state law. The Texas Supreme Court initially granted review and, in Rylie II, 602 S.W.3d 459 (Tex. 2020), held that whether the machines are constitutional and legal was relevant to the preemption question, remanding the case to the Second Court of Appeals to decide that issue. The appellate court’s March 17, 2022 opinion on remand is the ruling holding eight-liners to be unconstitutional lotteries.
In 2024, the Texas Supreme Court declined to review that decision, allowing the Second Court of Appeals ruling to stand. As a result, the holding is final, and Fort Worth can proceed with enforcing its ban on eight-liners and the game rooms that house them. Cities elsewhere in Texas have since moved to tighten regulations or ban the machines in light of the ruling.
Conclusión: Los octogonales son ilegales en Texas
The Second Court of Appeals in Fort Worth ruled that eight-liner machines are lotteries and are therefore unconstitutional under Article III, Section 47, which requires the legislature to pass laws prohibiting lotteries. With the Texas Supreme Court declining further review in 2024, that ruling is now settled law. Absent a contrary decision from another court of appeals, this means voters would have to approve a constitutional amendment to authorize eight-liners—similar to the amendments previously approved for charitable bingo, charitable raffles, and the state lottery.
