New Delhi, June 26 -- HARRISBURG - The skill game terminal had been sitting in the corner of the VFW Post on the south side of Lancaster for three years, generating enough in weekly payouts to cover the bar's refrigeration repairs and contribute toward the annual veterans' banquet. On June 15, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court called it an illegal slot machine. The bar has five days to figure out what comes next. So does the governor.

whether unregulated gaming terminals that test reaction time operate on skill, as their manufacturers insisted, or on chance, as the state's licensed casino industry had always argued. The majority held that the machines' advertised skill elements were insufficient to distinguish them from the slot machines re...