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Lawmakers press auditors on coin-operated amusement machine revenue model and possible effects on lottery HOPE funding

2174214 · January 28, 2025
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

Matt Taylor and university researchers told lawmakers a sales-tax model on coin-operated amusement machines would have yielded about $203 million in FY24 while Georgia's current licensing-and-net-share model would have yielded roughly $10 million less.

During the joint briefing on audits of tax incentives, presenters singled out the coin-operated amusement machine (COAM) sales-tax exemption for a separate discussion of revenue models and downstream effects.

Matt Taylor (Department of Audits) and Ben McCain (Georgia Southern University) described two alternative revenue approaches: a states-levied sales tax on gross game receipts (used in some states) and Georgia's existing model, which relies on licensing plus a 13% share of net revenue (net defined as gross receipts minus non-cash payouts). McCain said the researchers "kept it very narrow to the southeast" in comparative work and found Georgia's approach "stood out as being as having a net benefit over what some of the other states were doing in…

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