What the City of Miami didn't want you to know about those gaming machines...

The whole mess regarding the gaming machines, aka maquinitas, that brought the City of Miami to its knees finally culminating in the firing of the city's police chief all comes down to whether or not the machines in question were games who's outcome was determined by the players skill or simply games who's outcomes were determined by the computers that operated the machines.  Seems like a stupid question right?  As far as I can tell, whether the outcome is controlled by the player or by the computer, as long as money goes into to the machines and some sort of payout comes out, who cares who controls it, in my book that's a damn slot machine!  As dumb as that whole premise may sound, City of Hialeah police chief Mark Overton even went on the record saying...

“If it’s a game of skill or has some element of skill in it then it isn’t illegal,” Overton explained. “And that basically is what the statute says.”

What in the FCUK does that mean?  From the very same interview, Jim Defede goes on to ask Chief Overton...

But where is the skill to hitting a button marked “credits” and then hitting a button marked “play”?  “I don’t know, that’s part of the issue,” Overton said.

HUH?!  If Chief Overton doesn't know, then why comment about something you have no clue about?  What are we left to think, that there's some sort of black magic that controls these damn machines?

So how the hell are you to figure out just what's behind these machines?  Say for example you're an embattled police chief who crusaded against these machines who then found himself embroiled in a lawsuit filed by the owners of the 500 or so of these machines that you had confiscated, what would you do to prove that these machines were indeed nothing but illegal slot machines?  A smart chief would go ahead and hire an expert witness to go ahead and analyze these machines scientifically and prove that indeed they're nothing but slot machines designed to bilk people out of their money.  Said chief would then go ahead and submit this report to the court at which point any defense the machine owner would have would promptly get blown out of the water.  Makes sense right?

Here's the problem, when the maquinita owners filed their lawsuits to get their machines back, it was police chief Miguel Exposito that was spearheading the campaign against the machines and their owners.  Chief Exposito and his crew went ahead and hired the expert, not just any expert but the foremost figure in the field of electronic gaming and gambling machines, D. Robert Sertell.  The City of Miami retained Mr. Sertell to do a forensic analysis of the maquinitas that were in the city's custody, from what I understand, he spent a week going over the machines.  But just a few months later, City of Miami Mayor, Tomas Regalado successfully ousted police chief Exposito, and just like that the campaign against the illegal gambling machines was over, but where does that leave those lawsuits the maquinita owners filed to get there machines back?   You'd think that the maquinita owners were shit out of luck, what with the results of the forensic analysis of their machines and all, right?

WRONG!  A funny thing happened after Chief Exposito and his crew were fired, it seems like the City of Miami didn't want to pay the expert witness for his work.  While the city did retain and pay Mr. Sertell for the week he examined the machines, somehow the city didn't see fit to pay him for his report!  Think about it for a moment, no report from the expert witness results in an instant win for the maquinita owners!  And what better way to make sure that the report doesn't make it to court?  Easy, DON'T PAY THE MAN WHO WROTE THE REPORT!  Brilliant!

So there you have it, another day in the City of Miami.  The powers that be decided to protect their friends and campaign contributors that owned the maquinitas by directing the city not to pay the expert witness whose report would have destroyed any chance they had of getting their gaming machines back.  Fucking brilliant.  

It would have been a perfect plan if it wasn't for a private citizen who couldn't sit by and watch this bullshit, a private citizen who pulled several thousands of dollars out of his own pocket and paid for the report himself and was then kind enough to forward us a copy of the report...

LOL!  We'll discuss further on Monday...