Gamblers sipping beer at the East Baltimore bar have plenty of options. There's a Keno monitor in one corner. A vending machine offers scratch-off lottery tickets in another. Screens show horses running in another. And against one wall stands a bank of four video poker machines.
The first three types of games present legal opportunities to win or lose cash. But the row of video poker machines are supposed to be for amusement only: If you win, you aren't supposed to get money back.
But seasoned gamblers and even industry representatives say many bars like this one pay out cash to the winners, though such transactions are made in backrooms, or sometimes even bathrooms.
With a nod to reality, city officials are considering a new taxing system that would take in much more money from poker machines than is now collected. They're proposing a $3,000-per-machine annual license fee for bar owners, which would replace the current 10 percent amusement tax that now generates an estimated $522 per machine.
It's extra cash - an additional $3 million to $5 million yearly - the city could use to restore cuts to rec centers, pool hours and library hours.
Officials insist the plan does not amount to legalizing the devices. But machine owners say it would be unfair for the city to collect so much money and then continue occasional gambling crackdowns and machine seizures.
"That is the biggest question," said Larry Bershtein, the president of the Maryland Amusement Music Operators Association, which represents about 20 machine vendors statewide. "You take the $3,000, and tomorrow you come in and take my machine, too? I don't have an answer to that."
Officially, gaming is illegal in Baltimore. The city treats these machines as benign bar games, putting them in the same legal category as pinball machines and pool tables. However, City Councilman Robert W. Curran strongly suspects that many of these machines aren't registered with the city and taxes on them aren't paid. A 2006 Abell Foundation report determined that underreporting causes the state to lose $15 million annually.
To capture some of that money, Curran has offered the licensing bill that's caught attention from Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon. The legislation exempts the video poker machines from the amusement tax.
To encourage increased registration, Curran offers financial rewards to bar owners for turning in competitors who run machines that are not licensed. The idea intrigues Dixon, who is personally wary of gambling but is also struggling to close a $65 million budget gap. In a recent editorial board meeting at The Baltimore Sun, she called Curran's bill a "workable" way of raising new revenue.
Asked whether exempting the machines from the amusement tax is an acknowledgment that the devices are used for gaming, the mayor paused for a long time. "We have that in the state," Dixon said. "These facilities have been here. We just haven't gotten our bang." Dixon said later that the legislation needs to be thoroughly vetted by her administration.
Last year, the state comptroller's office began aggressively inspecting bars, looking for illegal gambling via the machines. They searched 13 bars in the city and seized 45 machines. City police participate in such raids, but their focus is on violent offenders, said Anthony J. Guglielmi, a police spokesman.
Curran denies that his bill represents any move toward legalizing gaming in Baltimore, something the city does not have the authority to do.
Discussing the bill over a hamburger in a Baltimore bar, he raised his voice and slammed a hand on the table. "This is an attempt to increase revenue for the city," he said. "It is not an attempt to legalize these at all. It is not even a first step."
But industry representatives are not so sure. Bershtein offered some support for Curran's idea, saying it could streamline the process of collecting funds, but he argued that the proposed license fee is too high and would cause all of the bar owners to get rid of their machines.
Bar owners disagree that the video poker machines could offer a revenue stream, saying that they are out of fashion with young people. "It is a dying game," said Vernon Oliver, the president of the Baltimore Licensed Beverage Association. Should Curran's bill pass, he said that he'd simply remove the machines in his bar and said many of his fellow bar owners would follow suit. "It is not a heated, passionate thing. It is an economic thing," he said.
Should the bill pass, and the city collect more money, some of that revenue should be directed to those with compulsive gambling problems, said Mike Osborne, director of the Harbour Pointe Residential Treatment Program for Gambling.
"I get the hot-line calls from the wife who is having BGE cut off because the husband is in the backroom playing the cherry machine," he said.
Though it is hard to know how many Baltimore bars depend on the games for revenue, it is clear that some people do play for sizable chunks of money.
In the East Baltimore bar, one man shoved $10 into a machine on a recent evening. He played for about 15 minutes (including a cigarette break), placing bets in nickel increments. He lost.
Across town, two women sat in another bar. In 20 minutes, one fed two $20 bills into the machine and didn't seem to be letting up even as the bar was closing.
One Baltimore man, who asked that his name not be used because he was discussing his illegal gambling habit, says that at times he has lost $500 to $1,000 in a night, though the bad economy has reduced his gambling. His biggest win was $2,700, when he hit two bonuses in a row.
He said that the odds of winning on the bar machines are very low. "The bars are set up for you not to win," he said.
