N.C. Rep. Melanie Wade Goodwin expressed confidence the state House will second the Senate’s near-unanimous approval Monday of a sweeping ban on video sweepstakes gambling.

Goodwin originally sponsored House Bill 80 in 2006 to ban video poker machines, but the contents were rewritten to include sweepstakes gaming parlors, or Internet cafes, during this session of the General Assembly and approved by the Senate 47-1.

Wednesday afternoon, Goodwin explained the bill has been received by House Judiciary Committee I, and is proceeding to the floor of the House.

“There will not be any amendments, as the only question will be to concur or not,” Goodwin wrote in an e-mail from the State Capitol. “Then it will go on to the full House for an up or down vote on concurrence.”

She said the bill has a considerable amount of support from her fellow legislators.

“I think we have the votes to pass the ban in the House, but anything can happen,” Goodwin said.

The impact of sweepstakes gambling in Richmond County made it to the floor of the Senate during debate over the bill, when N.C. Sen. Bill Purcell read a letter he received from a constituent.

Purcell told the Laurinburg Exchange he read the letter he received from a man who distributes food for a non-profit agency. He wrote he recently went into a store in Rockingham and saw several of his clients playing at a nearby sweepstakes site. He went into the business and asked them how they could afford to gamble when they couldn’t afford to eat, and they replied their winnings would liberate them from poverty.

Purcell said that too often the most impoverished in the state are those who are chasing the elusive jackpots.

“It’s creating jobs on the backs of the poor,” Purcell said.

A gaming advocacy organization expressed disappointment over the Senate vote in a Monday press release, but promised to begin lobbying House members Tuesday to see the bill doesn’t make it to the desk of Gov. Bev Perdue.

“The Entertainment Group of North Carolina will continue to push and support a regulated and taxed video gaming industry,” President William Thevaos said in the release. “There’s no difference between playing the lottery or a video sweepstakes game - except the State of North Carolina isn’t collecting any revenue from the video sweepstakes game. A ban will cost more than 10,000 jobs and hurt the state’s retail economy.”

Thevaos said regulation and taxation of the industry could create $576 million in revenues for the cash-strapped state government.

Diamond Lucky Sweepstakes owner Charles Sargent said state legislators are overlooking one inescapable fact.

His business is one of dozens in Richmond County that operates video gaming machines.

“The politicians aren’t thinking about the unemployment rate, and how many people are going to be put out of work if this ban passes,” Sargent said. “They always talk about how the poor people are spending all their money at these places, but nobody holds a gun to anybody’s head and says, ‘Play my games!’ They play because they want to, and if they don’t play them here - they’ll just play them somewhere else, then the money leaves Richmond County and it leaves the state.”

Sargent said the companies that own his machines are from South Carolina, and would simply set them up across the border to attract North Carolina residents if the ban passes.

He also said spending time at his business refutes many of the myths about video gaming, including the crime they attract, the long odds that don’t pay out and the addictive nature of the games.

“I have people that come in and play $10 or $15, and if they win, they win, and if they don’t, they don’t,” he said. “I don’t see anybody out there begging for $5 to gamble with. I also don’t see how they can say they’re against gambling when they passed the lottery. The lottery is a lot more of a gamble than this is.”

Sargent displayed a door with receipts for payoffs of up to $2,000. There were at least two or three dozen hanging on the door.

“And that’s from less than a month,” he said. “They’re worried that these machines take money away from their lottery, but if the lottery paid out like this more people would play the lottery.”

Sally Berry works at Diamond’s Lucky Sweepstakes, and she said the games give people a way to spend their free time.

“It keeps people from wandering the streets and gives them something to do in a county where there’s absolutely nothing to do,” she said. “That also keeps them from robbing and stealing and fighting and cutting out there.”

Marshall Berry said he plays the games on a daily basis, and may spend $10, then give up if he doesn’t win.

“I’ll say, ‘Oh well, can’t afford anymore of this,’” he said. “It’s just like drinking - you’ve got to know when to stop.”

Berry said his largest payoff was $250 off a $10 bet.

“Like today, I put $10 in, and I’m leaving with $20,” he said. “That’s fine by me.”

“We’re not saying don’t tax them, because the local municipalities need money and we understand that,” Sargent said. “All we’re saying is be reasonable.”

Staff Writer Philip D. Brown can be reached at (910) 997-3111 ext. 32, or by e-mail at pbrown@yourdailyjournal.com.