Our history, and the last few years.
John Fox is the president of American Amusements. In mid–2007, prior to marketing Bankshot, Fox asked a Nebraska State Patrol officer, Don Littrell, to assess the legality of the prototype. Fox understood that Littrell was the State of Nebraska's gambling device expert, and Littrell agreed that he was the State Patrol's “go-to-guy” in this area. Littrell advised Fox and American Amusements that the initial prototype of Bankshot was not legal, because the game did not involve a predominance of player skill. American Amusements then redesigned Bankshot and again asked Littrell to assess its legality. Littrell recommended submitting Bankshot to a third-party testing facility, and suggested two such facilities: Eclipse Compliance Testing and Gaming Laboratories International. In late summer 2007, Eclipse Compliance Testing tested the device and issued a written report in October 2007 concluding that Bankshot was predominantly a game of skill and therefore was a legal device in Nebraska.
Around January 2008, Bankshot games were placed into service in Nebraska. As many as 430 Bankshot games were located in 143 different Nebraska cities. After the Bankshot games had been in place for approximately 1 year, American Amusements received notice from the Nebraska Department of Revenue that additional testing of Bankshot was necessary, and American Amusements agreed to provide a Bankshot device for the additional testing. But before it did so, the State seized two Bankshot devices and submitted the devices for testing at both Eclipse Compliance Testing and Gaming Laboratories International. In a letter dated April 14, 2009, the director of the Charitable Gaming Division stated that the purpose of this testing “was to obtain opinions on whether Bank[s]hot was primarily a game of chance, and therefore illegal, or primarily a game of skill.” The testing again concluded that Bankshot was primarily a game of skill and was thus legal in Nebraska. At least one of the Bankshot devices submitted for testing used the same version of software that was in use at the time of trial in this case.
In September 2009, the State seized two more Bankshot devices. At the time of trial, these devices had not been returned. On September 17, appellees filed this declaratory judgment action, naming as defendants the Nebraska Department of Revenue; the Nebraska State Patrol; Col. Bryan Tuma, the superintendent of the Nebraska State Patrol; Doug Ewald, the Nebraska Tax Commissioner; and Jon Bruning, the Nebraska Attorney General (collectively the State).
2019 – American Amusements helped stop LB722, which would have made almost all coin operated games illegal, except any common device as a smartphone or personal computer including any device designed and marketed solely for home entertainment when used privately and not for a fee. 20
21 (b) Any automatic teller machine operated in accordance with the
Nebraska Banking Act
American Amusements supported ln538, a tax and regulatory schema in place to present day.
2020 - American Amusements and Bankshot help stop LB1175, which would have imposed a 20% tax on gross money
2021 - American Amusements and Bankshot help stop Lb367, which would have imposed a 20% tax on net money in addition to all current taxes.
American Amusements filed a lawsuit ageist the Nebraska Department of Revenue case cI21-177. We were successful, and the Department was permanently enjoined for enforcing rule 104D (would have banned progressive jackpots) and 104C (banned games functionally or resembling games regulated by the department)
2023 - American Amusements and BankShot help stop LB685, which was designed to tax and regulate away all coin operated games out of existence in Nebraska.
2024 - American Amusements and BankShot help fight the over regulation of the industry contained with in LB685, we worked with the legislature for changes in the legislation although not to the extent we had hoped, concessions by all parties were made and Lb685-2024 was passed into law.
American Amusements and Bankshot worked against Lb 1310 and lb 388 which would have imposed an industry killing transaction tax.
The special section began a new proposed machine tax on all coin, with cash device tax as much as 55 %. American Amusements and BankShot fought against LB1, LB9, LB34 because they would hurt, not help, Nebraskans.
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