Welcome to the first day of June, and another dive into the wonderful world of arcade news. Here are some quick items for you to look over this weekend.
Betson Settles Legal Dispute With Arizona Over Key Master Machines
If you’re into arcades at all, then you’ve very likely come across or played the merchandiser game known as Key Master. Developed by Komuse and Sega, this game became the next Stacker several years ago in terms of popularity & earnings for the category all over the world. As any popular machine goes however, it’s bound to attract some negative attention, especially for games offering high-end merchandise for the mere price of a $1 (if you win).
Long story short, the state of Arizona took action against Key Master after en employee at a vending company lodged a complaint; but what surprised me about this was that they went after the distributor (Betson in this case) and not the manufacturer. This whole thing has been going through the legal system for six years now, where the case was finally settled with Betson paying out $1 million, while not proclaiming any guilt. More details on this can be found at azcentral, while Replay Magazine has a statement from Betson.
The case focused on the auto-percentage payout; this is also the source for the Fair Play Pledge that the AAMA issued back in May 2017 to help manufacturers try and get ahead of other potential lawsuits. Auto-percentaging has always been a tricky business since each state (and often separate counties and/or cities within those states) have different rules/laws/regulations in dealing with certain games where chance is a part of the game. Will this affect Key Masters in other states? I would imagine so, although it could take some time. Will it affect other changes in merchandiser games?

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