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Waco staff propose ordinance to ban '8‑liners' after Texas court ruling; cite crime and laundering concerns
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Summary
City staff and police proposed updating city code to prohibit amusement‑redemption '8‑liner' machines used for gambling, aligning local law with a 2024 Texas judicial ruling and following Fort Worth’s lead; staff recommended Jan. 1, 2026 as an effective date.
Assistant Director Sarah Raley and Assistant Chief Mark Norcross told the council that Waco intends to amend municipal ordinances to prohibit amusement‑redemption machines known as “8‑liners,” following a 2024 Texas court ruling that found those devices constitute unlawful gambling.
Raley said Texas law historically included a limited “fuzzy animal” exception intended to protect children’s arcade games; operators have used that exception to deploy machines that resemble skill or prize games but operate as games of chance. She said a 2024 court decision concluded 8‑liners are unconstitutional gambling devices and that Fort Worth and several other Texas cities have adopted ordinances to ban them. “Bottom line up front, there was a judicial ruling in 2024 where Texas courts ruled that 8‑liners are unconstitutional gambling devices,” Raley said.
Assistant Chief Mark Norcross described the public‑safety impacts the Waco Police Department associates with 8‑liner operations. He said patrol officers typically see substantially higher call volumes at businesses with those machines — in some cases five times the calls and twenty‑times the case generation relative to a typical convenience store — and that investigations have linked such operations to guns, drugs, aggravated assaults and money‑laundering. Norcross described undercover investigations that spanned years: one inquiry identified an owner operating 83 machines across four game rooms and alleged laundering of roughly $100,000; another investigation alleged more than $500,000 laundered through 16 locations and ultimately was not prosecuted by the district attorney’s office.
Staff proposed draft changes to the municipal code that would (1) create separate definitions for coin‑operated machines and amusement‑redemption machines (the latter to be prohibited), (2) repeal the city’s current occupations tax on coin‑operated machines ($15 per machine per year) and (3) adopt enforcement tools including municipal fines and seizure authority consistent with legal precedent. Raley said staff recommends an effective date of Jan. 1, 2026 to avoid invalidating stickers purchased for 2025 and to provide operators time to remove machines.
Staff acknowledged enforcement challenges and potential “whack‑a‑mole” issues: operators may attempt to redesign machines or markets to claim games are skill‑based rather than chance‑based, and that could require continued legal review and investigative work. The draft enforcement approach includes municipal citations (Class E) as well as civil options and seizure authority; staff said Fort Worth’s seizure efforts inform Waco’s approach.
Next steps: staff plans to bring an ordinance to Council in October, follow up with zoning definition amendments at planning commission and City Council, and notify known operators and neighborhood associations ahead of an ordinance effective date. Council members and staff stressed outreach and noted the disproportionate concentration of known machines in lower‑income neighborhoods based on local mapping provided by Prosper Waco.
