Second Court of Appeals

Summaries of Civil Opinions and Published Criminal Opinions Issued - Week of March 14, 2022.

NOTE: Summaries are prepared by the court's staff attorneys and law clerks for public information only and reflect his or her interpretation alone of the facts and legal issues. The summaries are not part of the court's opinion in the case and should not be cited to, quoted, or relied upon as the opinion of the court.

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City of Fort Worth v. Rylie, No. 02-17-00185-CV (Mar. 17, 2022) (Kerr, J., joined by Sudderth, C.J., and Bassel, J.) (op. on remand).

Held: After concluding that Chapter 2153 of the Texas Occupations Code does not apply to unconstitutional or illegal coin-operated machines, the Texas Supreme Court remanded the case to this court to decide whether Appellees’ eight-liner video slot machines are unconstitutional or illegal because if either scenario exists, Chapter 2153 does not apply to Appellees’ machines and thus has no preemptive effect. See City of Fort Worth v. Rylie, 602 S.W.3d 459, 468–69 (Tex. 2020). We conclude and hold that because Appellees’ machines are games involving the payment of consideration for a chance to win a prize, they are lotteries, which are unconstitutional. Chapter 2153 thus does not apply to Appellees’ machines and does not preempt the City of Fort Worth’s ordinances regulating “amusement redemption machines”—a term that includes Appellees’ machines—and the game rooms that offer them.