Chaos Reigns in Missouri: One Machine, Two Rules — and a System of Unwritten Rules
Public Transparency Docket
Civic Outlaws is publishing Samuel Trapp's article together with the public records that place Missouri's electronic-machine enforcement policy under direct scrutiny.
On September 18, 2026, the Missouri Attorney General's Office acknowledged receipt of MOLAG's focused Sunshine Law request, assigned Request No. 26-585, and estimated that responsive records may be available by November 17, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. The outgoing request, the acknowledgment, and the printable two-column article are available below.
Public Document Packet
The acknowledgment confirms receipt by the Attorney General's Office. It assigns a request number and estimated production date; it is not a substantive answer to the questions raised.
One Machine, Two Rules - and a System of Unwritten Rules
Missouri says there is no lawful ‘gray market.’ Yet charitable, veterans', religious, and fraternal locations are operating electronic devices under an apparent understanding that a different enforcement rule applies. If that rule exists, the Attorney General should publish it.
By Samuel Trapp
General Director, Missouri Licensing Advocacy Group (MOLAG) | Host, Civic Outlaws
September 18, 2026
The Missouri Attorney General's publicly declared rule is categorical – There is no such thing as a ‘legal’ video lottery terminal (VLT). On February 13, 2026, a federal court declared that certain Torch devices marketed and distributed by the defendants in TNT Amusements, Inc. v. Torch Electronics were gambling devices under Missouri law and were illegal when operated outside a licensed casino. On April 8, Attorney General Catherine Hanaway announced that Torch had agreed to suspend operations and announced her interpretation of the Torch decision to mean that ‘there has never been a gray market.’
Publicly, the Attorney General has reinforced that message through lawsuits, press conferences, multi-county operations, search warrants, seizures, forfeiture demands, and criminal charges. Recent enforcement has reached commercial locations in Washington County and Butler County, among others. The public message is not subtle: unplug the machines, remove them, or risk prosecution and seizure.
The apparent unwritten rule
The unpublished rules are less certain. The author of this article has personally visited several charitable, veterans', and fraternal locations where electronic machines were operating. Employees and members described their understanding in substantially the same way: the machines were permitted, tolerated, or treated differently because the location was connected to a charitable organization.
MOLAG has also received repeated reports that vendors - including persons represented to be affiliated with Torch - are approaching former customers with proposals to form, affiliate with, or use a charitable organization so machines may be placed or returned to service. We have heard additional reports of charity-linked game-room arrangements in other parts of the state. Those reports have not yet been established through complete contracts, correspondence, sworn testimony, or a published government policy, and this article does not present them as adjudicated facts.
But the persistence of the reports itself is a public-policy problem. Businesses and charitable organizations appear to be making expensive decisions based on private explanations, vendor assurances, old letters, and word-of-mouth understandings rather than a current, published statewide standard.
If there is a charitable-location rule, publish it. If there is no such rule, say so clearly and apply the same written standard statewide.
Selective enforcement is not a legal standard
Prosecutors and investigators necessarily exercise discretion. They may prioritize the strongest cases, the clearest evidence, or the locations thought to present the greatest risk. That ordinary discretion, however, is different from an unwritten categorical arrangement under which a materially similar device is prosecuted in a convenience store, bar, or game room but tolerated in a charitable hall solely because of the host organization's label.
If the machines are technically or legally different, the State should identify the differences. If the charitable organization truly controls a constitutionally protected raffle, retains the proceeds, bears the economic risk, and uses a distinct electronic raffle system, that may be a principled distinction. But if the same cabinets, software, games, cash collections, payout methods, vendor control, and revenue splits remain in place, a charitable label cannot substitute for a legal standard.
Treating materially similar people or businesses differently without a disclosed, rational basis raises serious equal-protection and due-process concerns. The Constitution does not require every investigation to occur on the same day. It does require government power to be exercised under law rather than through a private network of unwritten permissions available only to those who know whom to ask.
The 2024 e-raffle letter is real - and narrow
MOLAG possesses a copy of an August 16, 2024 letter from First Assistant Attorney General James S. Atkins to attorney Karen Donnelly. The letter responded to a May 15 request made on behalf of nine veterans', fraternal, and charitable organizations. It concluded that qualifying charitable and religious organizations may conduct charitable raffles through paper, online, or electronic means.
The letter is important, but it is not a blanket license for every machine placed under a charitable roof. It does not identify Torch, any other manufacturer, a cabinet or model, the software, the game library, the method of determining outcomes, the prize or payout method, the owner or operator, the contract, the revenue division, or the degree of control exercised by the charitable organization. Most importantly, the May 15 request and its attachments - the facts on which the response depended - have not been made public with the letter.
A narrow legal response to a particular factual submission cannot fairly become a floating permit for unknown machines, unknown contracts, and unknown operating arrangements. Nor does a 2024 letter answer what the Attorney General's Office has said or done after the February 13, 2026 federal judgment and the April 2026 Torch suspension announcement.
The missing post-February rule
That is the present question: after February 13, 2026, did the Attorney General's Office communicate, instruct, agree, or understand that machines in charitable, religious, veterans', or fraternal organizations should receive lower enforcement priority, fall outside an enforcement initiative, receive delayed or declined enforcement, or qualify for a non-prosecution or similar arrangement?
MOLAG already possesses a partial communication attributed to personnel within the current Attorney General's Office that appears to contemplate non-enforcement against charitable organizations after February 2026. The complete communication chain and context have not yet been produced by the AG's office, and MOLAG is not publishing or treating that fragment as a final statewide policy. Its existence is one reason a complete public answer is now essential.
The same is true of any non-prosecution agreement, deferred-prosecution agreement, standstill, no-action letter, cooperation arrangement, assurance, safe-harbor understanding, or informal non-enforcement agreement. Such arrangements are not automatically improper. But when they create a practical statewide category or permit one class of locations to operate while another class is raided, the governing criteria cannot remain private.
Questions the Attorney General should answer publicly
Does charitable, religious, veterans', fraternal, nonprofit, or tax-exempt status affect enforcement priority, inclusion in an operation, charging, seizure, forfeiture, or prosecution?
What current technical and operational criteria distinguish a lawful electronic raffle from an unlawful gambling device?
Has the Office issued or approved any writing after February 13, 2026 allowing, encouraging, tolerating, or distinguishing continued operation or reactivation in charitable locations?
Has the Office communicated with Torch or any other vendor, distributor, attorney, fundraiser, operator, or host location about placing or restarting machines through a charitable organization?
Do any non-prosecution, deferred prosecution, standstill, no-action, cooperation, assurance, or informal non-enforcement arrangements apply to charitable locations?
Are the same or materially similar devices being treated differently based solely on whether they are in a commercial business or a charitable organization?
Who must own and control the machines, the software, the cash, the accounting, and the proceeds for the State to recognize a charitable e-raffle?
What guidance has been sent to prosecutors, sheriffs, police departments, MSHP, DPS, DDCC, ATC, and federal authorities on this distinction?
What records explain any change from former Attorney General Andrew Bailey's locally focused enforcement posture to Attorney General Hanaway's statewide campaign?
Will the Office publish one written standard that every business, charity, prosecutor, sheriff, judge, and legislator can read and apply?
A public-records test
MOLAG has now submitted a focused Sunshine Law request seeking the records that should answer those questions. The request covers January 1, 2026 forward and specifically asks for communications, internal guidance, agreements, non-enforcement arrangements, records involving Torch, and records explaining whether charitable or fraternal status changes enforcement treatment.
The Attorney General's Office acknowledged the request as No. 26-585 and estimated that responsive records may be available by November 17, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. The request and the acknowledgment are public documents. Detailed analysis of the eventual production, county comparisons, and member-specific enforcement materials can be organized separately so that public transparency and member support each have a proper place.
MOLAG will also invite charitable, veterans', religious, and fraternal organizations to voluntarily provide the machine descriptions, vendor identities, contracts, revenue arrangements, legal letters, government communications, and assurances on which they relied. That outreach is not an accusation and is not a Sunshine Law demand. It is an effort to discover what organizations across Missouri have actually been told.
Missourians should not accept government by rumor
This is not an argument that every electronic device is lawful. It is not an argument that every device inside a charity is illegal. It is an argument that Missouri cannot credibly announce that there is no gray market while allowing regulated parties to learn the real rule through private letters, vendor visits, whispered exceptions, selective raids, and incomplete communications.
The General Assembly should demand public testimony and a written explanation. If Missouri intends to recognize a lawful charitable e-raffle category, it should define that category in technical and operational terms. If no charitable distinction exists, the Attorney General should say so and enforce the same rule consistently. If enforcement discretion is being exercised, the policy and the rational basis for it should be disclosed.
One machine cannot be an illegal threat to public safety in one building and quietly acceptable in another merely because a private actor invokes the word ‘charity.’ A real legal distinction must rest on facts that can be inspected, standards that can be read, and rules that apply equally to similarly situated people.
Until Missouri publishes that rule, chaos will continue - and so will the demand for transparency.
One machine. One law. One interpretation.
Source notes
1. Federal declaratory judgment: TNT Amusements, Inc. v. Torch Electronics, LLC, No. 4:23-CV-330-JAR, Declaratory Judgment (E.D. Mo. Feb. 13, 2026). Open source
2. Torch suspension announcement, April 8, 2026. Open source
3. Multi-county illegal-gaming sting announcement, May 12, 2026. Open source
4. Washington County seizure announcement, August 20, 2026. Open source
5. Butler County enforcement reporting: September 11 report | September 17 update
6. Charitable e-raffle correspondence: August 16, 2024 letter from First Assistant Attorney General James S. Atkins to Karen Donnelly, contained in the Hannibal responsive production and retained in MOLAG records. The missing May 15 request and attachments remain material to its scope.
7. Public-records request: MOLAG Sunshine Law Request and Attorney General acknowledgment, Request No. 26-585, September 18, 2026.
About the author
Samuel Trapp is General Director of the Missouri Licensing Advocacy Group (MOLAG) and host of Civic Outlaws. MOLAG is a 501(c)(6) statewide membership association advocating for clear, uniform, and lawful treatment of Missouri businesses affected by electronic-machine enforcement. Civic Outlaws is a 501(c)(3) that examines government power, due process, public records, and accountability.
Continuing public record
Civic Outlaws will continue to follow the records request and the larger question of whether Missouri is enforcing one written rule or a network of unwritten exceptions. Government employees, charitable organizations, vendors, operators, and location owners with documents or firsthand information may contact MOLAG at [email protected].
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