A Minnesota Court of Appeals has ruled that the ‘open-all’ feature on electronic pull-tab casino games was improperly allowed and will be made illegal soon. The open-all function allows a user to hit one button to open cascading rows in which they can win bonus rounds.
The North Star State has sided with Minnesota’s American Indian Tribes over this issue. The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community brought the matter to the appeals court after initially challenging the open-all function in 2019.
The Tribe claims the open-all function mimics slot machines, over which Native American Tribes have a monopoly. Slot machines famously have the exact same feature, in which a single tap of a button reveals animated characters along reel lines and allows players the chance to win bonuses.
This ruling was made on Monday and reverses a previous administrative law judge’s decision that found open-all electronic pull-tab games were legal in commercial gaming premises. The Shakopee Tribe, which had long contended the legality of the previous ruling, welcomed Monday’s decision.
The Tribe released a statement saying: “We call on the Gambling Control Board and the Minnesota Legislature to take this opportunity to resolve this problem and others related to the regulation of electronic pull-tabs for good.”
Minnesota Gambling Control Board Executive Director Tim Mahoney said "it's hard to put the horse back in the barn,” with electronic pull-tabs, but he also didn't think changing them would represent a big problem for commercial operators.
Mahoney commented: “I don't think if they took some of the bells and whistles away from e-tabs you would have that much of an impact.”
He added that the ban would take not immediate effect.
