CHARLESTON, W.Va. — It’s getting closer but a computer software issue that impacts more than 400 owners of 6,000 limited video lottery machines in West Virginia still isn’t what the owners want.
The owners submitted bids and won 10-year permits for the machines two years ago but not long after that the company in charge of the software told the West Virginia Lottery it was going to make some changes. Machine owners were either going to have to buy conversion kits or new machines. Neither is very cheap.
Lottery Director John Musgrave has worked with the companies IGT and Scientific Games to extend their agreements to 2018. George Carenbauer with the West Virginia Amusement and Video Lottery Association told MetroNews recently that’s a step in the right direction but still not enough.
“It still presents us with an issue in 2017 when most of your machines are obsolete and then only three years later there is a bid again, so then you basically get only three years of guaranteed life out of the money that you’ve spent either for conversions or for new terminals,” he said.
Carenbauer said the best case scenario would be to extend the current software in the machines until the end of the current 10-year permits, 2021.
“That would allow everyone who bought the equipment in anticipation that it would last ten years and it would make the life of the terminals the same as the life of the bid,” he said.
Carenbauer said the issue isn’t over. The organization he represents plans to continue discussions with the lottery about other options along with talks with IGT concerning the cost of conversion and new machines. He said its also likely the 10-year permit holders will ask the legislature for help.
Carenbauer said the companies that in good faith submitted and won 10-year bids for LVL permits two years ago had no idea these expensive changes were coming.
“The owners of terminals, in almost every case, go out
and get a loan from a bank in the expectation that the loan they have is going to carry them through the 10-year period,” said Carenbauer. “And when something like this comes along it throws everything into question.”
LVL machines brought in just under $400 million in revenue to the state last fiscal year.