Anyone who has bought gas or a lottery ticket in Pennsylvania lately has probably seen one: a glowing machine in the corner that promises cash payouts.

There are tens of thousands of these “skill games” across the state, and until last month, no one could say for sure whether they were legal and, if so, who could regulate them and in what ways.

Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court ended that decade-long legal limbo in early June 2026 by recognizing that skill games are essentially gambling devices. Skill games do resemble slot machines: Players insert money and can win cash. But they include a skill element, such as identifying winning combinations or playing a memory-based bonus round. Manufacturers like Pace-O-Matic argued that this exempted them from state gambling laws – but the court rejected that argument.

The Pittsburgh City Council was quick to recognize a revenue opportunity, voting in late June to require businesses to license the machines and pay the city US$1,000 per machine annually.

The Pennsylvania Legislature is also considering several other taxation schemes. In that respect, the City Council and the state Legislature now resemble the many small businesses throughout Pennsylvania that had until the recent ruling been exploiting the legal ambiguity to offer casino-style gaming without a state license.

Yes, taxation creates trade-offs for legislators to weigh. However, from my perspective as a scholar who studies the legal and illegal markets that spring from prohibitions and legalizations, focusing on tax revenues misses the bigger picture. The fundamental question raised by skill games is: When should society limit everyone’s freedom to buy something in order to protect the minority who would be harmed by their own choices?

When government bans physical products

Democratic governments don’t typically stand between citizens and their impulses to buy things. If someone wants to drop $80 on a stuffed animal, that’s their business. Yet police arrest people for selling $80 worth of methamphetamine. The government prohibits meth sales because society does not trust everyone to make good choices about such powerful, addictive drugs.

That’s not to say the line is absolute. For example, raw milk is restricted due to food poisoning risks, despite being nonaddictive. Nicotine, while addictive, is legal – though heavily regulated – and the legal status of cannabis is evolving.

Still, the general pattern in the U.S. is that nonaddictive consumer goods are generally permitted, albeit with regulation, while addictive substances face closer scrutiny.

Should government restrict addictive experiences?

By contrast with physical products, policymakers now tend to duck difficult conversations about what to do with addictive services or experiences like gambling and video games. It has long been recognized that just as taking cocaine can trigger a dopamine rush, so too can video games and gambling.

The American Psychiatric Association’s official manual recognizes gambling disorder in its chapter on substance-related and addictive disorders.

That raises the difficult question of how society might consider restricting the availability of certain forms of gambling. Presumably, most people who use skill games have fun and are not harmed, but skill games may appeal particularly to vulnerable groups, including young people and people with gambling problems.

A Penn State study found that, relative to other gamblers, those who play skill games spend more time and money gambling, and 1 in 4 could be classified as “at-risk” or “problem gamblers.” Furthermore, that at-risk or problem group probably accounts for much more than 25% of dollars and hours spent on skill games.

With addictive products, a small group of heavy users often accounts for most of the consumption.

Beyond tax revenue

Focusing on tax rates or revenues overlooks the bigger picture. A gas station has good reason to offer skill games – they draw customers who might otherwise buy gas from a competitor.

But that’s an argument about which stores capture sales, not about total economic activity. The state’s decision to regulate skill games like slot machines will likely have little effect on how much gasoline gets purchased overall.

The real question is whether Pennsylvania and cities like Pittsburgh want skill games and other gambling opportunities to be widespread and unavoidable for people who struggle with compulsions to gamble. The alternative is asking the majority to accept the inconvenience of having gambling cordoned off from daily life in order to avoid putting a stumbling block in front of their neighbors.

Not so long ago, gambling was mostly restricted to a handful of places, notably Las Vegas; Atlantic City, New Jersey; and horse tracks. Ubiquitous availability of gambling may be a convenience for the majority, paid for dearly by the minority for whom constant access challenges their self-control.

Jonathan Caulkins receives funding from The National Science Foundation Grant D-ISN: Improving our Understanding of Illegal Opioid Supply Networks (2146230) and is an adjunct researcher with the RAND Corporation. The opinions expressed here are those of Caulkins alone, and do not reflect the views of either Carnegie Mellon University or RAND.

By Jonathan Caulkins, Professor of Public Policy, Carnegie Mellon University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.