Video Poker Kingpin Who Was Busted In 1995 Faces New Charges

John F. “Duffy” Conley, now 61, spent years battling local and federal authorities on a slew of charges related to the video poker empire he built in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The feds alleged in his first trial in early 1995 that his 4,000 video poker machines were pulling in some $600,000 a week.

Now, some 30 years later, the attorney general’s office of the state alleges that Conley was the man behind 400 illegal gambling machines seized from hundreds of locations across the region last year.

Conley, reached by phone Wednesday afternoon, told the Post-Gazette, “The little bit I have left is all legal.”

The felony counts of corrupt businesses, filed Tuesday by the office of Attorney General Dave Sunday, are against two companies allegedly run by Conley. The AG’s office had not filed charges against Conley as of late Wednesday afternoon.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Western Pennsylvania spent the better part of a decade going after Conley, who was barely out of high school when he began building the video poker ring that would eventually land him labels like the kingpin, titan, and baron of the video poker world.

After years of raids, warnings, and seizures, Conley was indicted in 1991 on nearly two dozen charges, including dealing in illegal gambling and money laundering.

It took years for the case to wind its way through the court system. A jury deadlocked at Conley’s first trial in early 1995. A second jury later that year convicted him of conspiracy and operating an illegal gambling business but deadlocked on 15 counts of money laundering.

A judge sentenced him to the maximum 10 years in federal prison. He served nine years and was released in January 2004.

By February 2005, state authorities were back investigating Conley’s dealings, this time finding a large-scale sports-betting operation through which thousands of dollars passed each day. He was sent back to federal prison in 2006 for violating the terms of his supervised release.

2009 saw his release once more, bringing the 20-year saga to a seemingly peaceful conclusion.

But in 2020, records show, he formed and registered Buffalo Skill Games — a company the state Attorney General’s Office alleges is behind hundreds of illegal video-gambling machines seized across Western Pennsylvania earlier this year.

Authorities say Conley is also the man behind J.J. Amusement, a company incorporated in 1992. The mailing address listed in state records is a small apartment building on Pittsburgh’s South Side. The Department of State lists James Gradnik as the president and treasurer of the company. He could not immediately be reached for comment.

Skill?

More than 400 gambling devices — illegal games of chance thinly disguised as legal games of skill, according to the AG’s office — were seized from dozens of gas stations, bars and convenience stores up and down Western Pennsylvania: Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Cambria, Crawford, Erie, Indiana, Venango, Washington, and Westmoreland counties, according to the AG.

The criminal complaints against Buffalo Skill Games and J.J. Amusement highlight the ambiguous distinction between legal and illegal video gambling devices under Pennsylvania law.

It comes down to skill versus chance, according to the complaint. Games of skill are legal. Games of chance are not. That difference, in legal parlance, is known as the “predominant factor test.”

Often, the games operate like a traditional slot machine — spinning wheels feature various symbols, and landing three of the same symbol means a win.

Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Eric Guido wrote in the affidavit that manufacturers of video gambling devices try to skirt that skill vs. chance test by adding what’s called a “nudge” feature. When a player matches two of three symbols, they’re offered a chance to “nudge” the third wheel up or down to create three of a kind.

“When two symbols match,” Trooper Guido wrote, “even a child would be able to identify the correct symbol to ‘nudge’ to create three in a row.”

While pushing either the “up” or “down” button creates a degree of interaction, the trooper wrote, “it does not transform a slot machine into a game of ‘skill.’”

According to the complaint, all of the gambling machines in question were either illegal slot machine games or similar games modified with the “nudge” feature. Both, investigators said, are illegal.

Investigators surveilled and played the video gambling machines at 47 different locations across the region ahead of the March 12, 2024, raids. Most locations — some of which authorities described as stand-alone storefronts that essentially operated as mini casinos — had a ticket redemption system in place: The gambling machines would spit out tickets for wins, and players could then redeem those tickets for cash at a separate terminal.

Agents with the AG’s office also raided a warehouse somewhere in Homestead that they said was associated with Buffalo Skill Games and J.J. Amusement. Inside, they found more than $175,000 in cash and a vast, elaborate network of surveillance cameras.

Special Agent Abram Cone wrote in the affidavit that dozens of monitors displayed what appeared to be live video and audio feeds from cameras keeping watch over hundreds of gambling devices scattered throughout the region.

Reach out to Megan: mguza@post-gazette.com