For the second consecutive month of the Kentucky General Assembly’s 2023 session, the most expensive fight to influence and lobby legislators was the one over so-called “gray machines” — the video games with cash payouts proliferating in stores, bars and clubs across the state.

The latest lobbying reports filed with the Kentucky Legislative Ethics Commission this week show the two main groups facing off against each other on whether to ban the games continued to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on TV, radio and digital ads to influence legislators.

The two groups — Kentuckians Against Illegal Gambling (KAIG), supporting a ban, and Kentucky Merchants and Amusement Coalition (KY-MAC), opposing a ban on what they call “skill games” — collectively spent nearly $600,000 on ads in just January and February, far eclipsing what any other companies or organizations have spent so far in their efforts to lobby legislators on bills in Frankfort.