Hillsborough considers clampdown on 'sweepstakes cafes'

The Hillsborough County Commission is looking into establishing controls over sweepstakes cafes.

Sheriff's officials, who are working with county staffers to draft an ordinance to crack down on the businesses, will speak about the matter at Wednesday's commission meeting, Commissioner Kevin Beckner said.

The ordinance likely will be voted on in the coming weeks, he said.

"With these establishments continuing to pop up across the county, it's certainly a concern of mine – illicit gambling that might be taking place across the county," Beckner said.

Proponents of the cafes say they run a sweepstakes kind of game rather than a game of chance and that loophole keeps them on the right side of the law. They have been challenged by law enforcement in Marion and Seminole counties where cases against sweepstakes cafes have ended in acquittals, dismissals or are under appeal.

There are roughly 1,000 sweepstakes cafes in Florida, including about 20 in Hillsborough County. In Pinellas County, Sheriff Jim Coats ordered the four businesses there to shut down, saying they violated an existing Florida Statute.

The businesses typically feature rows of computer stations linked to a server that hosts several sweepstakes-type games. The customer pays for a calling card – a $20 card buys Web access for about an hour – giving the customer time to play the games.

That method has kept the cafes in business, because some courts have ruled they are not coin-operated machines and the games are not games of chance.

Chris Brown, an attorney with the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, told commissioners last month he has been involved in litigating such businesses for several years, "mostly unsuccessfully, in ways of evidence, seizure and forfeiture actions, trying to take the paraphernalia and equipment involved with these businesses."

Brown said the sheriff's office would endorse an ordnance against such businesses and that the existing Florida Statute is "convoluted and very difficult to enforce on behalf of the state attorney's office, and in terms of our ability to seize and take some of these gambling items, it's similarly difficult."