Bobby Huckabee’s New Poker Face

If there’s one person whose actions tipped off investigators into former N.C. House Speaker Jim Black’s corruption, it just might be Bobby E. Huckabee III.

In 2000, the president and CEO of Southland Amusements & Vending personally donated more than $21,000 to political campaigns in the state, hoping to fend off any laws restricting what was then called video poker. 

Over the next two years, as chair of the N.C. Amusement Machine Association’s legislative committee, the Wilmington businessman encouraged members to donate to Black’s campaign. 

On the surface, there was nothing illegal about the contributions. But the money flowing to Black, who would serve four terms as speaker, caught the eye of Bob Hall, former director of the nonprofit watchdog Democracy North Carolina. Hall identified many first-time donors making contributions of $1,000 or more to a legislator they likely had never heard of, and some of the donors had been cited for various illegal gambling practices. 

Hall detailed Huckabee’s dealings in a 2004 complaint to the State Board of Elections, kicking off a multi-year investigation that brought federal agents together with the State Bureau of Investigation, State Board of Elections, and federal and state prosecutors.

Black was convicted in 2007 of public corruption (involving chiropractors, not video poker operators), offering a bribe, and obstructing justice. He served just over three years in prison. Meanwhile, Huckabee has kept a low profile in Raleigh for nearly two decades.

Now, as the legislature has legalized and expanded access to other forms of gambling in recent years, Huckabee and his money have reappeared. He’s pushing for the legalization of video lottery terminals, also known as VLTs, which were mostly banned in North Carolina in 2006.

Huckabee, 64, has contributed more than $216,000 to politicians’ campaigns in the past two years—far more than any other individual or company associated with the video gambling industry. Huckabee also has hired a trio of lobbyists. 

And the effort looks like it might pay off. Money from video lottery’s legalization was included in the governor’s 2024-25 budget, and the legislature’s nonpartisan Fiscal Research Division projected nearly half a billion dollars in annual new revenue before the decade’s end from a Republican VLT bill introduced last fall. 

As the state confronts future budget shortfalls and considers gambling revenues as a solution, Republicans and Democrats have taken campaign contributions from a man whose money was once considered tainted. Those legislators didn’t have much to say when contacted by The Assembly. 

Neither did Huckabee. Numerous attempts to reach him over the last month were unsuccessful. 

But in a September note to industry observers, he wrote that video lottery’s moment in North Carolina might finally have arrived. His team had been at the Legislative Building “day and night and saw great support for VLTs.”

“They will need that revenue for their tax cut goals and projected budget deficit in 2027, which will be about the time a substantial number of VLTs will be online and the state will be realizing a big portion of the expected revenue,” Huckabee wrote. “We will stay on top of this issue until we get this done.”

Cash, Crime, Vice

Four video gambling machines sit behind the register of a Shell convenience store in Raleigh, their view obscured by lottery tickets hung at the top of a plexiglass employee booth and displays of cigarettes, snuff, and vapes. 

The machines are illegal, but a touch-screen beckons with three different games replicating slots. Whatever the game (St. Patty’s Payday? Double Shot? Lightning Strike?), and whether the wager is a quarter or $5, the goal is the same: Get three of a kind—in a row or in a pattern. You can continue by pressing “Play” or leave the game for good with the “Ticket” button, exchanging your receipt to the clerk at the counter for cash. 

On a Monday morning, I pulled an oat milk Frappuccino from the refrigerated case and walked up to the register. 

“Those available to play?” I asked the cashier, who pointed me to a break between the coffee counter and a refrigerator case with eggs and prepackaged lunch meat. I passed a mop bucket and an unused display case for hot gas-station eats before pulling a leather bar seat up to machine number three. 

Within 10 minutes I had cycled through all three games, winning $2.50 for lining up two triple bars and a “wild” tile in Double Shot, a free game in St. Patty’s Payday—for what, I don’t know—and another $2.50 for three “double bars” in a row at Lightning Strike. While the machines have a high rate of small wins to keep people engaged, I felt luckier learning that convenience stores now stock lactose-free cold coffee. I punched the “Ticket” button, and got a green receipt redeemable for $10.35. I lost $9.65 playing quarter slots.

During the 1980s, video poker “emerged as a high-tech form of gambling, with strong ties to traditional organized crime,” said a 1990 report from Pennsylvania’s Crime Commission. The decade saw the launch of stand-alone arcade games like Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and Frogger, and the same technology was rapidly repurposed for gambling.

The triple whammy of cash, crime, and vice reverberated across the country. In October 1984, the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations held a hearing on organized crime’s connection to video poker. “Its presence has already, at this relatively early stage, been linked to tax avoidance, the corruption of public officials, extortion, and the violence which so often accompanies it,” former Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn said of video poker.

Huckabee launched Southland Amusements & Vending, Inc., in 1983, growing the operation “from a small one-man business into one of North Carolina’s most successful suppliers of state-of-the-art arcade style games and amusement systems,” he wrote in a 2009 blog post. The company is now called Southland Entertainment. 

In North Carolina, most video poker machines distributed or repaired by Southland likely have operated illegally for all but a few years.

State law allowed places with ABC permits, like convenience stores and restaurants, to operate a limited number of video gambling machines from 2000 to 2007, so long as they reported revenues and statistics to local and state agencies, and paid out no more than $10 in merchandise. The law prohibited cash prizes.

But the revenue figures were often not reported, some sheriffs took payments to overlook the law, and operators paid out large cash sums. In 2004, federal officials announced that the father-son video poker duo Ricky Godwin Sr. and Ricky Godwin Jr. had plead guilty to operating an illegal gambling business and forfeited $5.2 million in illegal proceeds, as well as forfeitures from South of the Border. Weeks later, Huckabee pulled a reported 87 machines out of New Hanover County.  

Machine owners, operators, promoters, clerks, and armed security guards have been charged, but enforcement has been inconsistent. Only occasionally have players been charged with misdemeanor illegal gambling.  

Legislators passed an outright ban in 2006. What soon followed was a series of dog-chases-cat, cat-swipes-at-dog court battles between the state and the operators.

Operators found a loophole to circumvent the 2006 law by reprogramming the machines. In 2009, a Superior Court judge ruled on the industry’s side, saying he couldn’t ban the machines because legislators allowed them with the Eastern Band of Cherokees’ casino in western North Carolina.

Legislators sought control again the next year, prohibiting sweepstakes games that have an “entertaining display.” The state Supreme Court ruled several times in favor of the regulators. 

While North Carolina debated legality, Huckabee found new markets to corner.

In 1993, the year after Louisiana legalized video poker, Huckabee registered Southland Gaming of Louisiana; he started Southland Gaming of the Virgin Islands in 1998; and in 2000, he launched Advance Cash Express, a payday lending business largely operating in South Carolina.

Over two decades, Huckabee founded more than 30 companies, mostly devoted to real estate in the Cape Fear area, and others performing services for his amusement business, such as lobbying.  

On the first day of this year’s short session in April, lobbyist Patrick Ballantine, a former Republican gubernatorial nominee who served 10 years in the state Senate, strode the halls of the sixth floor of the Legislative Office Building. He was flanked by two fellow lobbyists for NC General Investments, one of Huckabee’s companies. 

That afternoon Ballantine popped his head into several offices, seeking a conversation with Rep. Harry Warren, a Rowan County Republican who is the sole sponsor of a stalled 2023 bill to legalize video lottery terminals.

Ballantine isn’t the only lobbyist seeking to legalize video lottery: J&J Gaming of Effingham, Illinois, has five lobbyists working the General Assembly; Primero Games of Georgia employs four; and Scientific Games, LLC—another name known best in North Carolina for its proximity to Jim Black—has four lobbyists. 

‘Dirty Hands in the Legislature’

The morning of March 22, 2006, 10 people connected to the video poker industry sat inside the now-demolished Radisson Hotel in Research Triangle Park, waiting to testify before the State Board of Elections.

Minutes before 11 a.m, Monica Absalao rose from a seat alongside her ex-boyfriend Gary Mitchell, who owned 14 active video poker machines. Placing her left hand on a Bible, the then-31-year-old Goldsboro resident took the oath before answering questions for 20 minutes. 

Prior to 2002, Absalao had never made a political contribution. She did not vote in North Carolina until 2008. But before the board was a BB&T-issued cashier’s check for $500 made out to Black’s campaign in her name.

She was pressed by members of the board as to where the $500 came from. “It was Mr. Mitchell’s,” she said. 

Why did she give the money? “Because I wanted to.”

Who is Jim Black? “Speaker of the House.”

Chairman Larry Leake circled back.

“You just walked in one day and said, ‘I’ve been thinking. I’d like to have on record that I gave  money to Jim Black. Will you purchase a $500 money order for me?”’ Leake said.

“I reckon,” Absalao responded.

Board member Lorraine Shinn asked Absalao whether the couple were politically active at the time. “I wasn’t, no,” Absalao said.

“So this was an epiphany?” Shinn asked.

“It sure was,” Absalao said.

Mitchell’s testimony immediately followed. He revealed that it was Huckabee who got him in the business in 1991, and Huckabee who asked him to contribute to Black. 

“We can read through the lines and know that she was asked to do it and given the money and it was given in the name of another, which is illegal,” Gary Bartlett, then the director of the State Board of Elections, said in a recent interview.

Huckabee’s name came up repeatedly in testimony: from one of his former commercial landlords who was asked to donate to Black and gave $2,000; from a Southland employee who solicited donations for Black from businesses on his service route, at Huckabee’s request; and when board members inquired of Huckabee’s whereabouts.

But neither Huckabee nor one of his top officials testified. When agents working with the State Bureau of Investigation went to Huckabee’s last known address in Wilmington to serve subpoenas, he was nowhere to be found. 

Leake referred Huckabee and 17 others to Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby, noting that the video poker industry had worked to circumvent election laws, and “may have given less than truthful testimony” to the board. 

Federal prosecutors got the first go in court. They alleged Black accepted checks from chiropractors where the “pay to” line was left blank, and that he later helped pass a law that increased their co-pays. He was convicted of public corruption and sentenced to over five years in federal prison.  

The sentence came after state Rep. Michael Decker, who Black paid $50,000 to switch parties, received a four-year prison sentence. Kevin Geddings, Black’s appointee to the state lottery commission who never disclosed a $228,797 payment from a lottery company, also received a four-year sentence.

Black also was convicted in state court of bribery and obstruction of justice by paying Decker to switch parties so Black could maintain his speakership.

When the feds dug into Black, they subpoenaed “all documents related to communications” between Black and 28 different “relevant parties.” Huckabee, his companies, and the N.C. Amusement Machine Association were listed in a federal grand jury subpoena. But none were charged in either federal or state court.

“No one in the video poker industry was ever willing to testify against Black,” said Joe Sinsheimer, a former Democratic political consultant who ran the website www.jimblackmustgo.com. 

Sinsheimer noted that the industry’s donations were largely made by purchasing money orders with cash, which made it difficult to trace their origins and helped the industry stay out of the limelight.

He said that while Democrats didn’t want to make things worse for one of their own, neither party wanted to take down the video poker industry. “No one in the legislature was going to touch it—there were too many dirty hands in the legislature,” Sinsheimer said.

Vice Advice

In 2014, Warren took a trip to West Virginia to see how that state regulated video lottery. The following year he introduced his first of five bills legalizing the industry, or allowing a gaming commission to do the same. Last year, Warren worked with state Alcohol Law Enforcement, the Sheriff’s Association, the state lottery, and the video poker industry to develop a bill to legalize video lottery machines.  

Warren’s bill, which he sponsored alone, divided net revenues with 40 percent going to the state, 35 percent to video lottery operators, and 25 percent to merchants with machines.

Of the annual revenue that would go to the state, $22 million is earmarked for public and private historically Black and American Indian colleges and universities; $3 million would go to the state’s Alcohol and Law Enforcement division for enforcement; $1 million for gambling addiction education and treatment; and $1 million for sheriffs to combat illegal gaming.

“We can read through the lines and know that she was asked to do it and given the money and it was given in the name of another, which is illegal.”

Gary Bartlett, former director of the State Board of Elections

Video lottery’s legalization in other states has been tied to rampant corruption and unforeseen costs. When Louisiana first legalized video lottery terminals, crime families from the state and New York established a gaming company and a distribution subsidiary, securing the sole rights to many machines, the Los Angeles Times reported. 

Illinois’ 2009 legalization was a “botched money grab,” with lawmakers accepting a smaller share of profits than other states, and saddling the state with “new, unfunded regulatory and social costs,” ProPublica found. 

“My bills have always had a centralized management system where every machine is tied to the lottery and we are able to see every time they are used,” Warren said. That’s an industry standard that keeps data on each party’s share of revenue and payout rates.

Warren said he hasn’t been part of any conversations about video lottery legislation for this year’s session, which House Speaker Tim Moore has touted. In 2023, Republicans unsuccessfully attempted to tie video lottery’s approval to legalizing casinos and expanding Medicaid, The News & Observer reported. That bill also dedicated 40 percent of revenues for the state, but did not specify how any of the money would be spent.

State Sens. Bill Rabon and Jim Perry, who each received $12,000 from Huckabee over the last two years, did not respond to requests for comment. 

A spokesperson for House Majority Leader John Bell, who received more than $11,000 from Huckabee, said Bell “has not seen anything or been a part of the conversations” on video lottery. House Minority Leader Rep. Robert Reives, who was one of two Democrats to receive recent donations from Huckabee, said he did not want to comment without seeing final bill language. 

Michelle Malkin, who directs East Carolina University’s gambling research and policy initiative, said she hasn’t been involved with the legislation, but that funding levels for key programs were not enough.

“I’d rather see it legal and regulated, but it comes with what I call a responsibility—and that responsibility is the resources necessary to have proper outreach, education, treatment, and research,” Malkin said. “And right now, we don’t have enough resources for any of those four things to really expand more gambling in the state.”

Statewide there is only one counselor internationally certified to treat gambling disorders. While there are other counselors trained to help people with addiction, few services exist in rural areas.

About 1 in 20 North Carolina adults experience a gambling disorder, and a recent study found that video gambling is among the most addictive forms. 

The terminals are designed so that players don’t need to take a break; unlike sitting at a card table, a player never has to wait for a hand, but constantly presses buttons. The colors, lights, music, and rate of small wins all are designed to keep a player engaged longer, Malkin said.

Malkin understands how owners of convenience stores and bars see the machines as a win-win. But she said the terminals lack important controls for people who suffer with addiction, like voluntary self-exclusion, in which a person can sign up to block themselves from playing.

“What we’ve been able to show through research is that gambling will affect the brain very much like a substance in your body will affect the brain,” Malkin said. “For those people who have gambling disorder, their brains are affected by gambling, but they can never gamble in a healthy way again.”

Community Man

Huckabee was difficult to pin down in 2006, when SBI agents couldn’t find him, and he remains elusive. On an outdated LinkedIn page, Huckabee positions himself as a family man who invests in his community. The father of six sent his children to East Carolina University, Appalachian State University, North Carolina State University, and UNC-Wilmington, where he also studied a few semesters.

Huckabee wrote that he’s a proud supporter of numerous Christian and youth-oriented charities, but his involvement with the groups is largely unknown. Two of them—Life Line, a crisis pregnancy center, and the Boys and Girls Home of North Carolina—said donor information is private.

One nonprofit listed had a history of financial mismanagement, filed for bankruptcy in 2016, and has since shuttered. 

“I’d rather see it legal and regulated, but it comes with what I call a responsibility—and that responsibility is the resources necessary to have proper outreach, education, treatment, and research.”

Michelle Malkin, East Carolina University

Huckabee wrote on LinkedIn that he’s a donor to the Fellowship for Christian Athletes, but Tommy Lee, who has been the area director for the fellowship’s Southeast NC chapter since 2019, said he doesn’t think he’s ever met Huckabee. “I know the name but wouldn’t be able to tell you anything about him,” Lee wrote in an email. “I think he was involved before I came on staff.”

In the Virgin Islands, where Huckabee set up the U.S. territory’s lottery system and secured a contract to be the exclusive supplier of VLTs on two of the three islands, a budding mental healthcare nonprofit confirmed a company contribution. “Their generous contribution amounted to $2,500,” an employee wrote in an email about Southland Gaming of the Virgin Island’s subsidiary, commUNITY.

CommUNITY’s Facebook page boasts sponsorships for events like day parties at a luxury megayacht harbor or a brunch bash, alongside sponsoring children’s baseball teams, golf tournaments, and a gala. 

Southland’s Virgin Islands operations have not been without opposition. In 2003, then Gov. Charles W. Turnbull criticized island senators who “so blatantly ignored the known wishes of virtually all sectors of the electorate and residents of the territory” when they supported keeping video lottery terminals legal.

A 2007 audit by the U.S. Department of Interior’s Office of Inspector General criticized the Virgin Islands for allowing Southland to directly remit the government’s proceeds from the lottery with no oversight.

Four years later, a former U.S. attorney for the Virgin Islands and an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Southland Gaming for defrauding the government. The complaint was dismissed and neither plaintiff responded to requests for comment.

Hall, the campaign finance watchdog, finds it ironic that many of the Republicans who flipped control of the North Carolina legislature in 2010 campaigned as anti-corruption champions of family values. 

Huckabee and his wife have donated more than $294,000 since 1990 to politicians, their parties, and judges. While more than 75 percent of Huckabee’s donations went to Democrats when they were in power in the early 2000s, the lifelong Republican has largely switched his contributions to the GOP.

“You have this marginalized industry that has a reputation of corruption and really jeopardizing families that [Republicans] are all of a sudden embracing,” Hall said. There’s a simple explanation, he said: Follow the money.