Are sweepstakes cafes legal? So far, yes

It's just after 10 a.m. and Angel Nicolodi has just opened her cyber café in Valrico. Fifty plush chairs sit empty in front of fifty computer consoles, waiting for customers to come in and try their luck at a variety of online sweepstakes games.

It's early. By the day's end, many of those chairs are filled with sweepstakes seekers, looking for the easiest kind of cash.

Sound like gambling?

Well, it's not casino gambling, she said. It's more like the sweepstakes you might encounter at MacDonald's when you buy a Coke and get a game card. You're paying for the Coke, not the game card. That's free.

It's the same principle here. You are buying computer time, not a raffle ticket or a pull on a slot machine. Because sweepstakes results are predetermined and not a game of chance, it's not gambling and is not restricted by the laws that govern casino gambling.

That's how it's legal, she explained, though there have been, and likely will be attempts by legislators to limit and even shutter sweepstakes cafes like this. It's a burgeoning business.

Nicolodi's Calypso Sun Cyber Café in Valrico is one of eight owned by her family in the state, the others being in the Jacksonville area. She said the business was started nine years ago. This one opened on Sept. 17.

"My grandfather opened all of them," said the 27-year-old Lakeland mom recently at the café, 3130 State Road 60, just east of Valrico Road. "It's a family business."

Players can spend $20 for a card that allows them to play about 25 sweepstakes games for about an hour, she said.

Gamers swipe the cards at the computers to play. They can play one game the whole time or switch to other games offered by the dedicated server. Some look like video games while others simulate slot machine screens.

If they are lucky, customers can collect winnings from the cashier at the front of the store.

Some win. Some don't.

Since opening in September, the café has had one lucky gamer who hit the $3,000 jackpot. There's a bulletin board by the front door listing winners, ranging from a few bucks to hundreds of dollars.

New customers are given a complimentary "no purchase necessary" card to see if they like playing, she said.

Some first-timers ask if it's legal, she said, and she repeats the spiel explaining why they won't get arrested if the place is raided.

"We don't hide anything," she said. Occasionally, undercover law enforcement officers come in. She said she can spot them right away. They ask for a copy of the regulations and then play the games for a while.

"I know them," she said. "We're not afraid of them. We are not doing anything illegal."

There are regulars who come in and people who are curious, she said. They come after finding the business on Facebook or seeing it passing by or hearing of it by word of mouth, she said. Some stop in after bingo games nearby or after leaving the lounge next door. Some stop after gambling at the casino in Tampa, she said, "when they still are not ready to go home."

Customers come from all walks of life, she said.

"Some call this a senior arcade," she said. "But it's not just seniors, though our oldest customer is a 90-year-old woman who can work a computer as well as I can."

Susan DeRosse, 51, of Valrico has been to 14 different sweepstakes cafes around Tampa since she first discovered the places a few months ago. She sees it as a social club more than a place to win – or lose – money.

"The first time I ever knew about these things was through the Calypso Sun," she said. "A friend told me about it in December. I had never been to anything like that before.

"I'm a single mom, with a son in college. I don't go to nightclubs or bars; I'm not a drinker," she said. "I'm socially limited … to sitting at home and watching the four walls close in on me."

Her first trip to a cyber café caught her. "I said, 'Wow, nobody's bothering me,' " she said. "I can spend $5 or $10 and enjoy myself."

She has become friends with other customers, she said. "Most of the people I've met are empty nesters," she said, "or they are retired."

And it's inexpensive. "You can go with $20 and spend two or three hours and just relax and enjoy yourself," she said, "and, every once in a while, you can win."

She said that she believes she's won more than she's lost.

"I'm not doing it for sake of, 'I got to play, play, play to make money,' " she said. "My motivation is that I want to go out and have fun."

While she's a big cyber café fan, she doesn't describe herself as a gambler and has been to the Seminole Hard Rock Casino only twice, she said, "once when it first opened and one other time about two months ago. That's not for me. It's too much going on. I got a lot of anxiety, seeing the way people are over there. It's almost a scary situation."

In 2007, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum said that while his office considers sweepstakes cafes to be in violation of state law, it is up to local law enforcement to decide whether there is anything illegal going on. It's on a case-by-case basis.

Rep. Scott Plakon, R-Longwood, has come up with a bill to close the loopholes in the law, that appears to be mired in a committee this past session. Newly elected Attorney General Pam Bondi has said she favors the bill.

"This session, the Attorney General's Office supported Rep. Plakon's legislative proposal to remove any possible ambiguity over whether internet cafés constitute illegal gambling by closing the loopholes in current law that allow these cafés to operate," she said through her spokeswoman, Jennifer Krell Davis.

Kelly Mathis is a Jacksonville lawyer who represents Internet sweepstakes cafés that have been challenged throughout north and central Florida. He watched Tallahassee closely this week, monitoring the progress of Plakon's bill.

He said a similar bill has been floated in the Senate but that one hasn't gone very far either. Still, that doesn't mean they won't get passed during "the chaotic last few days of session," he said.

Sweepstakes laws, which have been on the books for 40 years, are strict, he said, but confusion arose when sweepstakes began popping up on computers. There never was an issue when people got their sweepstakes notices in the mail, he said.

"Sweepstakes now have moved into the computer age and most are being conducted on computers," he said. "And with the Internet, most businesses nationwide are using the power of the Internet for sweepstakes and marketing."

Though they appear to be harmless fun, gambling addicts don't need another place to lose their money, addiction counselors say.

The Florida Council on Compulsive Gambling said that in 2008, there were just a few sweepstakes cafés, but now, there are more than 600 in Florida. The website issued this statement:

"Internet sweepstakes centers have changed the gambling landscape in Florida over the past two years. These facilities are popping up all over Florida and luring in individuals at an alarming rate."

The council pointed to the convenient locations of the cyber cafés, making it easier to get to for people with gambling problems.

"Now," the website said, "they have access to gambling right in their neighborhood."