BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A recent settlement between North Dakota’s attorney general and three gambling equipment distributors will stand after their main company retracted an email sent to customers that the AG scrutinized for possibly violating the settlement.
Attorney General Drew Wrigley told The Associated Press on Friday that Western Distributing Company retracted the email in a subsequent message to customers, “which was wise of them.”
Wrigley in April accused Western and affiliate companies Plains Gaming Distributing Inc. and Midwest Gaming Distributing Inc. in an administrative complaint of violating the state’s gambling laws and regulations by facilitating excessive rent payments and attempting to influence bars’ charitable gambling activities through the Wall of Honor veterans nonprofit. The Wall of Honor recognizes military members and veterans and emergency responders on indoor digital display boards in places such as bars, restaurants and fraternal organizations.
Wrigley had alleged a scheme involving the Wall of Honor as an enticement to get bars to use electronic pull tab machines provided exclusively by the three distributors, and to influence bars to switch charitable gambling organizations, The Bismarck Tribune reported.
The settlement includes a maximum $125,000 fine, acknowledgement of wrongdoing, and the removal of Western and Plains President and shareholder Dave Wisdom and his immediate relatives from ownership and involvement with the companies.
Another provision includes potential revocation of the distributors’ licenses if they don’t comply with the settlement’s terms or if they commit other violations during the next three years. Wrigley, in reviewing the now-retracted email, cited an agreement of the settlement that the distributors “will refrain from making any statements contrary” to the settlement’s terms and acknowledgements.
Wrigley said he is not revoking the distributors’ licenses. He said what caught his eye in the initial email were characterizations of Wisdom’s removal from ownership as his retirement, and activities related to the Wall of Honor as the result of confusion.
“It was not a bit of confusion, and they’ve acknowledged that in the settlement,” Wrigley told the AP.
Two Western owners did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the settlement or emails. A phone message left at the company’s office was not immediately returned.
Wrigley provided the AP with Western’s retraction email, which stated: “Following additional communications from the Attorney General, and to avoid any confusion, we retract Wednesday’s statement,” and “We are grateful to have this matter behind us. We look forward to serving our valued customers while fully complying with the law.”
The attorney general also said he takes issue with a recent statement by Wall of Honor Volunteer Executive Director Tammy Ibach in response to the settlement, who he said “persists in trying to fortify the facade that was maintained previously” regarding the veterans nonprofit as an enticement in the scheme he alleged.
The complaint did not accuse the Wall of Honor of wrongdoing.
Ibach said in an email to the AP: “Perhaps the AG should focus on crime, fentanyl, cartels and drug overdoses in our state instead of worrying about me/the Wall of Honor and the missteps the Wall of Honor acknowledged in previous statements and which were corrected years ago.”
She noted that of the 68 Wall of Honor locations that are eligible for charitable gambling, Western companies have machines in 28 locations, “21 of which Western had long before the Wall of Honor concept.”
North Dakota lawmakers and state regulators have grappled in recent years with issues related to electronic pull tabs, which have proliferated in the state since 2018.
Electronic pull tabs generated nearly $1.6 billion in proceeds in fiscal 2022, paying out about $1.4 billion in prizes and netting about $200 million for charitable uses, according to North Dakota Director of Gaming Deb McDaniel.
The Legislature this spring passed a bill to limit e-tabs, which function like slot machines, while a legislative study of the state’s charitable gambling issues unfolds.
