(This is Part 2 of a two-part series. Part 1 is here.)

When the Senate started talking about banning sweepstakes parlors, I couldn’t help but think about my neighborhood.  I live in Garner, a small town just south of Raleigh - mostly blue collar and retirees. Recent growth here has headed south, skipping over low-income areas along Highway 70.

I live near the edge of one of those older areas. And there are three sweepstakes parlors within one mile of my house.  So I thought maybe I should take a tour. 

The closest one is also the newest – The Galaxy Internet Café. It popped up overnight last month, tucked into a corner near a dollar store.  It’s a bare room with a concrete floor, a coke machine, and about 30 terminals under a flickering strip of fluorescent light. 

Half a mile away, in another rundown strip mall near a public housing complex, there’s another sweepstakes parlor.  The sign on the front doesn’t say so  – it advertises internet, fax, and copies.  Inside, it’s decorated with pictures of craps tables and roulette wheels, right next to the signs assuring you in capital letters that “YOU ARE NOT GAMBLING.”

The third parlor is a mile south, where the houses get nicer. It’s right next door to the grocery store I usually go to.  It’s been open about a year now, and compared to the other two, it’s pretty nice.  Little white vases of flowers decorate the tables in the front windows.  Patron Lorraine Hinton has never seen anyone sit at those tables. She says she comes here about once a week.

I mean, you know, whenever I get a little uptight, I like to come and just…. I don’t take any more than just about a couple of bucks. And if I lose that, I’m out.  I’m satisfied.

Hinton looks forward to her sweepstakes games all week. She doesn’t want state lawmakers to ban them. 

No.  Oh, no.  I mean - - because I mean, if you got control – I got control. But I know my limits. I take it what I’m gonna use. Once it’s gone, I’m out.  I don’t keep going back. Now, there are some people who don’t have control. But I do, ‘cause I don’t have that kind of money to be blowing (laughs).

The signs in the window advertise Twitter and Facebook, but Hinton says she’s never seen anyone use the computers for anything but sweepstakes.  It’s not clear how that would work, anyway:  there’s not a keyboard in sight. 

I wanted to ask the owner about that.  But he wouldn’t talk to me, except to tell me that Garner Mayor Ronnie Williams is one of his patrons. I called the Mayor to ask about it.

That's not the complete truth. I have visited the place twice, and my wife sat down and played $10. -- she loves to play the 21, I guess - the card game.   But I have personally not played, but I have been in the store facility twice.

Williams says he stopped by to check the parlor out after hearing some concerns about it.  He’s on the board of the state League of Municipalities. The League supports the ban on video gambling parlors, so that’s his official position, too.  But personally, he’s not so sure.

I'm between a rock and a hard place on this. My personal conviction is, I haven't -- my phone is not ringing off the hook with people objecting are complaining about the operations of the sweepstakes cafés. They are providing jobs... and entertainment.

Williams repeated several times that he does support banning sweepstakes parlors. He just isn’t sure the legislature has the moral authority to push it through.

Once the state approved the lottery, I think it opened the door for gaming, or gambling, and this is a form of gaming and gambling. To put everything on an even playing field, maybe they should go back and undo what they done on the lottery   I see very little if any difference, except that part of the money for the lottery goes into education.

That’s an argument you hear a lot from people who make a living from internet sweepstakes.  Consultant Brad Crone is a spokesman for the industry. He says the state just doesn’t want the competition.

There's no difference between playing a $20 lottery scratch off ticket, and a $20 videogame. Except the fact the state of North Carolina is not collecting any revenue off of the video sweepstakes game.

But others say there’s a big difference. Wake Democrat Josh Stein is the main Senate sponsor of the sweepstakes ban.  He’s no fan of the lottery, either. But he says video gambling is much worse.

With the lottery, you scratch it off and you've won or you've lost. It's over. The excitement was over the second you scratched it off. With these Internet sweepstakes casinos, it's just like a slot machine. They let you win a little bit and you lose a little bit. You win a little bit, you lose a little bit. And you have this repetitive, compulsive, exciting adrenaline -- and that's what feeds addictions. And what gambling experts will tell you is it is the worst kind of gambling addiction.

Stein wasn’t surprised to hear how many parlors have popped up around Garner. He says studies have shown most of them are located in low-income communities.

 They put them in locations where whenever you go to the drugstore, whenever you go to the supermarket, you're walking right by them. And so they're preying on people -- encouraging them to think they're gonna get that one payoff that's gonna answer whatever problems they're facing.

The same arguments were made about the lottery, too.  But the state does have control over the number and location of outlets.  In contrast, most towns have no say over sweepstakes parlors, which can open up in a matter of hours.

Stein hopes the House will vote on the ban before too many more pop up.  It could get a hearing in a House Judiciary committee as soon as tomorrow. 

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