Someone suggested I wander over to Ala Moana Center and check out Fun Works. You enter on street level next to McDonald’s, and it looks like a typical video arcade featuring late model games, but the real action is in a section way in the back of the store.

That’s where a dozen or more “Island Fruit” game machines sit on long desks separated by dividers into individual cubicles that shield the machines from the view of casual observers. While the main part of the store had only a couple of customers, it was busy there in the back, and the vibe is different.

It felt a lot like low-rent Vegas, with a number of people who looked like they couldn’t afford it shoving quarters into the machines.

These “Island Fruit” machines look quite similar to other fruit machines featured on gambling sites, Internet casinos, etc.

Is there gambling going on back there? Prominent signs pronounce: “This is a game of skill”.

But other signage sure make these games of “skill” sound like gambling.

Rules posted with each game console prohibit players from “holding” machines when they are not actively playing, except to use the restroom, paying for parking, or when “withdrawing cash or redeeming skill tickets”.

One small sign, taped to the front of the Island Fruit consoles, says simply:

Skill tickets of $600 or more will be paid via check issued from our Main Office in 3 to 5 business days.

So does that mean winnings of up to $599 can be taken in cash on the spot?

Claims that these games require “skill” to earn payouts doesn’t appear to be sufficient to avoid being considering gambling under state law.

Hawaii’s gambling laws are spelled out in Section 712-1220 HRS, where gambling is defined, and continue through Section 712-1231, which defines legally permitted “social gambling”.

Additional legal commentary can be found in HRS as well, following each section of the statute.

The law defines gambling, in part, as risking “something of value upon the outcome of a contest of chance”. And a “contest of chance”:

…means any contest, game, gaming scheme, or gaming device in which the outcome depends in a material degree upon an element of chance, notwithstanding that skill of the contestants may also be a factor therein.

And “social gambling”, which is allowed, cannot take place in certain areas, including “any business establishment”, meaning that whatever goes on back there in Fun Works cannot be considered simply “social gambling”.

(4) It is not conducted or played in or at a hotel, motel, bar, nightclub, cocktail lounge, restaurant, massage parlor, billiard parlor, or any business establishment of any kind, public parks, public buildings, public beaches, school grounds, churches or any other public area;

Fun Works is a trademark registered by Fun Factory Inc., which also owns the trademark to “Island Fruit Games”.

Last year, Big Island blogger Damon Tucker called attention to a store in Hilo with walls of slot machines and people playing them.

The Honolulu Police Department lists video games among the most common types of illegal gambling in Hawaii.

Whether or not the machines and gaming practices in the back corner of Fun Works would pass an HPD review isn’t known, but they certainly appear to this casual observer to fall within the definition of gambling prohibited by state law.

So what’s up?