A retired state police corporal who worked for the company that expanded gaming into Pennsylvania communities with its controversial skill games is accused of using his position to aid the proliferation of illegal video gambling devices across the commonwealth.

Ricky Goodling, who worked as national compliance director for Georgia-based Pace-O-Matic until 2023, was charged last month by the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office with racketeering and related offenses following a years-long undercover Pennsylvania State Police investigation. 

The Pennsylvania attorney general’s office alleges Goodling took more than $500,000 in kickbacks to quash complaints about illegal slot machines. Prosecutors also allege Goodling helped distributors of the illegal devices obtain Pace-O-Matic’s machines in an attempt to deflect law enforcement scrutiny. An attorney for Goodling told the Capital-Star on Friday that he had no comment. 

Also charged are three employees of Deibler Brothers Novelty Co., a Schuylkill County company that prosecutors say distributed illegal gambling machines in 15 central and eastern Pennsylvania counties. An attorney for the company’s principal owner, Arthur Deibler, said his client is presumed innocent and that he looks forward to defending the case at trial.

A spokesperson for the attorney general’s office, which did not announce or publicize the charges after they were filed, deferred to the charging documents when asked for comment. The charges were first reported Dec. 19 by the Schuylkill County news website Coal Region Canary.

Charging documents say a grand jury in Pittsburgh conducted a related investigation into another illegal gambling enterprise that distributed illegal machines in 18 western Pennsylvania counties as well as Delaware County in the southeast part of the state. Goodling also received kickbacks from the western Pennsylvania company, prosecutors say.

The attorney general’s office spokesman did not say whether charges had been filed in the Pittsburgh grand jury investigation and no record of charges against the individuals mentioned in the charging documents appears online. 

Pace-O-Matic is the state’s leading distributor of skill games – slot machine-like devices that allow users to make a wager to win a jackpot. The company says the machines provide vital income for small businesses and nonprofit fraternal organizations such as American Legion posts, which receive a share of the money from the machines.

But not everyone views skill games as beneficial.

Skill games in court

Skill games have been the subject of a string of court decisions establishing that they are legal in as much as they are not subject to regulation under Pennsylvania’s Gaming Control Act. The state Supreme Court is currently considering Attorney General Michelle Henry’s challenge to that status, which Pace-O-Matic is fighting to defend. The company argues they differ from slot machines because they require an element of skill rather than pure chance to win.

State lawmakers have floated measures to either regulate and tax skill games or ban them outright. As Gov. Josh Shapiro and the General Assembly look to provide new funding for transit, infrastructure and education in the next budget, skill games are likely to be a subject of legislative debate again this year.

A new proposal Friday by state Sen. Gene Yaw (R-Lycoming), whose district includes the largest manufacturer of Pennsylvania skill games, estimates that a regulated and taxed skill games industry could generate $300 million in new revenue annually. That’s about the size of Shapiro’s unfulfilled 2024 budget request for new transit funding.

In the face of a call to ban skill games, Pa.’s biggest player is pushing back hard

Pace-O-Matic, which has said it would welcome regulation, told the Capital-Star in a statement Friday that it is deeply troubled by the charges against Goodling, whom the company dismissed after it became aware of an investigation in late 2023. 

“While we are monitoring the situation, law enforcement has assured us that Pace-O-Matic is not involved in or connected with any of the alleged actions or charges facing Mr. Goodling,” a Pace-O-Matic spokesperson said in the statement.

It also said that the company has enhanced and expanded its national compliance department under the leadership of former state police Commissioner Frank Noonan. Noonan has also served as criminal investigations chief in the state attorney general’s office and as an FBI agent for 25 years.

“Mr. Noonan’s experience and reputation are unmatched, and we have tapped into his knowledge and leadership to enhance our compliance program,” the Pace-O-Matic spokesperson said.

Goodling served as supervisor of the Pennsylvania State Police gambling enforcement unit before he retired from law enforcement in 2018. Later that year, he took a job with Pace-O-Matic, one of the companies he had monitored with the state police. 

The first public indications of legal jeopardy for Goodling came in January 2024, when the Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation branch disclosed that it had seized more than $400,000 in cash and accounts belonging to Goodling.