A Slidell, LA, truckstop manager lost his battle to restore video poker after it was banned in a 1996 election.

A state district judge dismissed a lawsuit by Robert Carlini, manager of the Slidell 76 Travel Center. Slidell is in one of 33 parishes that voted out video poker in a 1996 local option election. But Carlini claimed that cities such as Slidell, with home rule charters, weren't organized by an act of the state Legislature. The home rule charter, he claimed, required the city to publish an economic feasibility study before a tax or bond election - which wasn't done before the 1996 election on video poker, the outcome of which affected tax revenue, according to the lawsuit.
The judge, however, agreed with the state that the Legislature had the authority to call a statewide election, and that the lawsuit was filed too late to challenge the election results.