Video poker is dead and buried, but its ghost is hovering around the GOP's state treasurer primary campaign, resurrected by one candidate's television ad touting how he "fought gambling" that brought allegations of hypocrisy.

Greg Ryberg, a state senator from Aiken who gave his treasurer's campaign $2 million March 31, launched television ads this week that include the reference to video poker.

But allies of Rick Quinn, the former House majority leader, said Thursday that Ryberg, while a staunch foe of video gaming in the Senate, was hypocritical because he didn't remove the machines from his convenience store chain until it was politically expedient.

"I'm surprised at their comments," Ryberg told The Greenville News on Friday.

Advertisement

He said any money he made from a handful of machines that went into his stores in 1991 was "an insignificant sum."

The machines were removed in the spring of 1992, probably in May, he said. He won his Senate nomination weeks later in the June primary.

Ryberg said he came to see video poker as "a scourge on South Carolina" and he became one of its most vocal opponents.

After his children, who were working in some of the stores, questioned the financial losses of players and two employees were fired for taking money that they played -- and lost -- in the machines, he began considering their removal, Ryberg said.

"In early 1992, and we have it on video, a customer picked up a machine and threw it to the floor" in frustration over losses, he said. Ryberg said he told himself then, "We've got to get them out of here."

Rep. Jim Harrison, R-Columbia, a Quinn ally, said he doesn't question Ryberg's opposition to video gaming, "but many of us knew at the time Greg got elected to the Senate that he was actively involved in the convenience store business and owned video poker machines at most, if not all, of his stores."

Ryberg said he had four or fewer machines and did not own them, that a coin-operated machine company placed them in a few stores.

Harrison, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said, "It looked like (Ryberg's) decision to remove the video poker machines was largely related" to his primary campaign.

He said the sequence of events "reflects a person who took a political position to remove the machines because he believed they would be detrimental to his election."

"For him now to say he led the fight, is somewhat misleading," Harrison said. "Yes, he was actively opposed to (video gambling), but it doesn't show until such time as it was politically expedient that he began to feel that way."

Quinn said, "I guess now I know where he got his $2 million from. It's a bit hypocritical. He should have used some other issue. Most people want to hear what the treasurer's going to do."

Terry Sullivan, a Ryberg strategist, said the Quinn campaign's attack appeared to violate a "Clean Campaign Pledge" that Quinn signed and sent to Ryberg as a press release.

"It appears that Rick has broken the first and second (items) of 'Truth' and 'Fairness,'" the latter by "coordinating Harrison's attack. He broke half his pledge in one afternoon."

News accounts from video poker's 1990s heyday portray Ryberg as a staunch opponent, both on the campaign trail and on the Senate floor.

Video poker was banned by the courts in 2000.

Rep. Dan Tripp, R-Mauldin, another Quinn supporter, said, "It's a very hypocritical claim for him to say that he fought against video poker. I know his stores sold lottery tickets in Georgia" and had poker machines in South Carolina, he said.

Ryberg said his Georgia stores did sell lottery tickets. "The lottery was legal," he added.

In 1999, Ryberg sold his stores to the company that operates the Pantry chain.

Ryberg and Quinn are two of four Republicans seeking the right to challenge Democratic incumbent Grady Patterson. The others are developers Jeff Willis of Easley and Thomas Ravenel of Charleston.

Warren Tompkins, Ryberg's political strategist, wouldn't talk dollars, but said the campaign had purchased airtime in the state's major markets "reflective of where the votes would normally be in a Republican primary."

The ad is biographical in nature and makes no reference to opponents while citing Ryberg's experience in building a business and having "delivered conservative change to the state Senate."

The Greenville-Anderson-Pickens-Spartanburg market, including adjacent counties, can account for up to 35 percent of the statewide GOP primary turnout.