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State of Play’s TL;DR
- Missouri’s crackdown on “gray-market” gaming machines is facing a new legal test.
- A St. Charles bar owner has sued Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, arguing she cannot treat the devices as illegal without action from the Missouri General Assembly.
James Schappe, who operates Tuners Bar & Grill in St. Charles, MO, has filed suit against Attorney General Catherine Hanaway after the AG intensified enforcement against “gray-market” gaming devices.
According to the lawsuit, Schappe argues the attorney general does not have the authority to criminalize the machines without legislative action. One of the complaint’s central arguments states:
“The Attorney General may not fill those legislative silences with her own criminal-law judgments.”
Schappe is also challenging how the crackdown has been applied beyond Torch Electronics, the company at the center of earlier litigation. In his filing, he says he does not operate Torch machines and should not be bound by the ruling against the company.
That earlier case is a key part of the backdrop. In September 2025, a Missouri civil jury rejected Torch’s argument that its games were not gambling because of their predetermined sequence. Then in February, US District Court Judge John Ross ruled that Torch’s machines were “gambling games” under Missouri law.
Torch Electronics has since agreed to stop operating its machines in Missouri until lawmakers decide whether to authorize and regulate them.
Suit turns up heat on lawmakers
The lawsuit seeks two things: to block future enforcement against Schappe’s business and to obtain a declaration that Missouri gambling laws do not apply to his machines.
That distinction matters because Missouri’s gray-market devices have often been marketed as “no-chance” or skill-based games. The machines use a “pre-reveal” feature that shows the outcome of the next play before a wager is made, an argument operators have used to say the games fall outside standard gambling laws.
For the wider market, this is less about one bar and more about how far Missouri’s enforcement can reach after the Torch rulings. Before the crackdown, the state was home to up to 20,000 gray-market gaming machines, many placed in bars, gas stations, and convenience stores.
Schappe’s complaint captures that uncertainty directly, arguing the state “asks retailers to predict what the law means while she reserves the power to decide, after the fact, whose machines are crimes.”
The case could help determine how Missouri courts treat non-Torch machines and whether legal differences between operators will matter after the federal ruling. It also puts fresh attention on the Missouri General Assembly, which may ultimately decide whether these devices are authorized and regulated.
Based on reporting by Philip Conneller for Casino.org.
