South Carolina's lawmakers have laid their cards on the table, and video gambling will become illegal in the Palmetto State beginning in July 2000.

The Supreme Court of South Carolina struck down part of the anti-gambling legislation in October.

The court said that giving citizens the right to vote on whether gaming would remain in a town or province would challenge the state's authority.

But the court did uphold the legislature's ban on payouts of video machines—rendering video poker illegal—because elected officials wrote and voted the ban into law.

Video poker has been legal in South Carolina for eight years. South Carolina has acquired more stand-alone electronic gambling devices than any other state in the nation.

Not all residents are convinced that this is the end of the matter. "They've driven stakes through the heart of video poker half a dozen times," Elton Greenwald, a video poker player at Isle of Palms Pantry store, told the Charleston Daily News. "Reports of its death may once again be greatly exaggerated."