The City of Bradford has started the process to add a license requirement and fee to the skill games cropping up in grocery stores in the city.

The skill games, which look like slot machines, are untaxed and unregulated video gaming machines with winnings determined by a player’s skill level rather than by chance. Courts have ruled the machines are outside Pennsylvania’s Gaming Act.

On the agenda at Tuesday’s Bradford City Council meeting was a change to an ordinance regulating amusement devices. Eric Taylor, city administrator, said, “I would say the biggest change would be adding the gambling device fee. Everything else has been in the ordinance, although there was an increase in mechanical devices.”

The new part of the ordinance has a license fee of $75 for “mechanical devices including music boxes, pool tables, pinball machines and similar devices, excluding all devices defined as ‘gambling devices.'”

For gambling devices, which includes video poker and “anything there could be monetary gain on,” Taylor explained, the annual license fee is $500 each.

He added that “it is not differentiated by size,” so a small video poker game would cost the same to license as the large booth for a skill game.

The license fees are not billed to the establishment where the machines are located.

Taylor said, “Licenses will be for each device within an establishment and will be billed to the company that owns the device, not necessarily the establishment they are in.”

Should the ordinance pass on second reading, anything considered a gambling device under the city’s ordinance must be sealed by a designee of the City of Bradford unless or until a license is obtained for it.

If the device is moved somewhere else in the city to be used, the license does not transfer with it, the ordinance reads.

Skill games are often found in grocery stores, convenience stores, bars, gas stations and fraternal clubs. Small business owners support them as a form of revenue, while public safety advocates say they could lead to an increase in crime, and are appealing to and accessible by children.