Lakewood City Council OKs Ban on Internet Sweepstakes Cafés

No Internet gaming cafés, sweepstakes gaming cafés or computer game centers have opened in Lakewood.

And after Lakewood City Council unanimously passed an ordinance Monday extending the city’s ban on them, it may stay that way.

to continue a moratorium forbidding businesses that feature computer games (billed as entertainment) from moving into the city — for at least another six months.

Lakewood Law Director Kevin Butler said state representatives are working to resolve the issue. Legislation was introduced in Columbus last week that would leave the decision up to the cities.

“Essentially, they’re cast as loopholes to the prohibition against gambling in Ohio,” said Butler.

Mary Louise Madigan, Lakewood City Council president, said council wanted to pass the city’s legislation to see what shakes out in the Ohio Statehouse.

“Ohio courts and the even Ohio Legislature are still deciding what Internet gambling is,” she said. “We had intended to do this.”

In October, with at least one Internet gaming café knocking on the door, passed a 6-month moratorium to sort out the issue — hoping that state legislation would be in place banning the establishments.

Here’s how it works: Customers pay per minute to use the Internet, and while online they earn credits to play games of chance. There are cash payouts for those who are successful.

Neighboring communities such as Brook Park and Parma Heights have approved the establishments, but Lakewood hopes to keep them out. Other communities, such as Strongsville, .

And others, like Berea, have drafted regulations that allow the businesses to operate only in certain sections of the city and between certain hours.

In 2009, a municipal court judge in Toledo ruled that Internet sweepstakes operations were not gambling and fall outside state gambling laws, because sweepstakes winnings are predetermined by computer and not by games of skill or chance, according to a story last year in cleveland.com.