New Delhi, July 3 -- The machines are still running. Nobody has shut them down. But the people who own them know, as of nine days ago, that they are operating outside the law.

the touch-screen gaming machines found in roughly 22,000 bars, restaurants, and truck stops across the state - meet every element of Pennsylvania's legal definition of a slot machine, it did not order an immediate shutdown. It gave the legislature 120 days to write a regulatory framework that brings the games into compliance. That window runs to mid-October. The state budget deadline runs out in five days.

The gap between those two timelines is where Pennsylvania's skill game industry now lives, and it is not a comfortable place. On Tuesday, hundreds of operators,...