Wisconsin: Are video gambling machines legal in taverns, gas stations? It’s complicated

Monday, October 27, 2025 10:06 AM
Image aggregated from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
  • Hope Karnopp Frank Vaisvilas, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

At a Milwaukee bar, someone “won money here on a slot machine and they refused to pay.”

A gas station in Wausau “recently installed video gambling machines of questionable legality.”

Those are among the complaints consumers submitted to the state within the last year over video gambling machines.

While tavern owners see gambling machines as a source of needed revenue, there’s lingering uncertainty over what, exactly, is legal in Wisconsin.

Tribal leaders view them as an unregulated intrusion on their gaming rights. And some lawsuits over the machines and their regulation have even reached the state Supreme Court.