‘Illegal’ sites for gambling vex authorities

Internet café gambling operations are proliferating in Central Florida and statewide after an attorney convicted in 2013 in a $300 million operation had his case dropped earlier this year, law enforcement officials say.

“Once that court case came out, you started to see them become more emboldened by this and they just said, ‘Hey, let’s go,’ ” said Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood, whose deputies this summer raided the Hot Spot internet café in Ormond Beach and seized $10,000 in cash.

Earlier this month, weeks of undercover work in Lake County — dubbed Operation Jackpot — culminated in a raid of 10 internet cafes, the seizure of $200,000 in cash and the arrests of four people charged with keeping an establishment for gambling. Lake deputies believe there are as many as two dozen such operations in the county.

After state prosecutors dropped racketeering charges against Jacksonville attorney Kelly Mathis this spring, internet

cafes have again sprouted up, with businesses saying their operations are legal. The development has prompted calls for legislators to pass harsher state laws against the businesses or take steps to regulate them.

“I want the Legislature to figure this out for us — either it’s gambling, in which case you’re going to put tougher penalties and make it worth our while — or you’re going to tax it, regulate it,” Chitwood said. “Everybody is kind of stuck with ‘Which way do we go here?’ ”

In the meantime, law-enforcement officials say they are left conducting costly, time-consuming investigations that risk the chance of being tossed out of court. That’s a problem for public safety, said a Lake sheriff’s spokesman, because internet cafes are magnets for crime.

“People are asking us, ‘Why don’t you hit these places?’ ” said Lt. John Herrell. He said enforcement operations had slowed because of a lack of “judicial clarification.” Then the opioid epidemic took priority.

For some law-enforcement agencies, internet gambling intersects with the opioid problem.

“We were finding hypodermic needles in the parking lot and getting a lot of drug complaints” outside an internet café on U.S. Highway 441, Tavares police Cpl. Sarah Coursey said.

Tavares police raided the café — also called Hot Spot — in November, seizing $52,000 in cash, two weapons and several slot machines. After it closed, a sign hung on the door telling customers to go to another internet café in Leesburg.

“They think it’s not hurting anybody, but at the same time, the ones in Las Vegas and the casinos in Tampa, they’re regulated, they get audited, they get checked,” Coursey said. “This can be rigged in any way.”

Unlike casinos, the slot machines and tabletop games known as fish tables don’t yield winners by pure chance, but by a pre-set algorithm. For that reason, owners say it’s not gambling — and have often had their cases thrown out of court.

Mathis, who argued that he followed state regulations governing sweepstakes and contests, was convicted by a Seminole County jury in 2013 of racketeering and dozens of other counts including possessing illegal slot machines. He was sentenced to six years in prison, but the judge let him remain free while he appealed. The 5th District Court of Appeal reversed his convictions and ordered a new trial in October 2016. But in March the state prosecutor handling the case dropped the charges rather go to the expense of a repeat trial.

Mark Simpson, an assistant state attorney for the judicial circuit that includes Lake, said internet café prosecutions can be controversial. “There’s also the argument, ‘Well, you’re not hurting anybody and it’s a victimless crime — and the bottom line is why are you trying to take the fun away, especially from seniors?’ ” he said.

Even though owners face the prospect of being shut down, such operations inevitably will continue to pop up, officials said.

“They’re going to keep pumping money into this to get gambling on every street corner because it’s so profitable,” Simpson said.

“I want the Legislature to figure this out for us — either it’s gambling, in which case you’re going to put tougher penalties and make it worth our while — or you’re going to tax it, regulate it.” Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood