In the hundreds of pages of legal documents filed in a Southside Virginia courthouse as part of a closely watched gambling lawsuit, an image from “Star Trek: The Next Generation” succinctly captures what the surrounding legalese is about.

It shows the android character Data standing at a craps table in a spaceship casino, using superior robotic precision to throw winning dice rolls over and over.

Theoretically, a human could try to become so skilled they achieve similar dice mastery, a gambling consultant working with the state of Virginia wrote. But in the real world, no matter how much players want to believe they’re in control, a dice roll is fundamentally a matter of chance, not skill.

The notion that profit-seeking companies would design betting machines that the most skilled players can beat every time is a similarly far-fetched idea, according to two gambling experts Virginia hired to help defend its ban on so-called skill games, the slots-like devices widely available in truck stops, sports bars and convenience stores despite lingering questions about their legality.