When Manatee County Sheriff’s deputies raided the Spin Fun Arcade two years ago this month, they believed they were shutting down one of the county’s more blatant illegal gambling dens.
Perched along U.S. 41 in a busy Bradenton strip mall, the arcade’s darkened windows were wrapped with images of floating dollar bills, mounds of gold and the word “jackpot” in bold letters — advertising that left little mystery about what awaited inside.
Deputies hauled away nearly a hundred slot-style machines, many stamped with the Bally logo used in licensed casinos, and seized tens of thousands of dollars in cash. The investigation file included surveillance video, payout tickets and a sworn statement describing cash prizes exchanged openly at the counter.
The man they alleged was behind it all wasn’t an obscure operator but Gary Kompothecras — the well-known Sarasota businessman behind the 1-800-ASK-GARY lawyer referral network, political donor to governors and state attorneys alike, and financier of the MTV reality show Siesta Key.
Deputies said Kompothecras owned the building, controlled the cash flow and profited from the arcade’s illegal operation, according to pages of investigative documents obtained by Suncoast Searchlight and Bradenton Herald. Yet within months of the bust, the same storefront was back open for business.
No one, including Kompothecras, was ever arrested or charged.
The Spin Fun case highlights the challenges local authorities face in enforcing Florida’s gambling laws. Even when investigators conduct raids and document what they believe to be illegal gaming activity, prosecutions may not follow, and businesses can resume operations, often in the same location as before.
Spin Fun was among the arcades featured in a joint Suncoast Searchlight–Bradenton Herald investigation in July, which had identified nearly 20 storefronts from Bradenton to Englewood where customers could play slot-style machines for cash prizes — a practice banned everywhere in Florida outside of tribal and licensed pari-mutuel casinos.
At the time, Kompothecras, who owns the building where it operated, told the media organizations he was only the landlord and denied any knowledge of gambling inside.
Reporters did not yet know he had been named a suspect in the sheriff’s office case. By his account, neither did he.
Reached by phone this week, Kompothecras said it was the first time that he was hearing about the criminal investigation against him. He said neither the sheriff’s office nor prosecutors had ever contacted him about the allegations.
“That’s amazing,” he said after learning of the criminal investigation from a reporter. “Maybe they were trying to get evidence and found out it wasn’t true. There are legal machines and illegal machines. The people that rented it said they were legal, and I said fine. I believed them. They paid the rent.”
Kompothecras said that his tenants voluntarily closed the arcade this summer after the media coverage.
“I think there’s bigger crimes out there than people playing slot machines for pennies,” he continued. “But now that you shut them down, there’s people without jobs, and I’m not getting rent.”
Hampered by limited resources and weak criminal payouts after exhaustive investigations, state and local authorities for years have struggled to police these operations, which they say have become breeding grounds for drugs and violent crime. Law enforcement has responded numerous times to the address for Spin Fun, mostly for calls referencing drug-related incidents, including apparent patron overdoses, sheriff records show.
Punishments in Florida for operating or owning slot machines outside of a licensed facility can range from 60 days in jail to five years in prison, along with fines of $10,000 per machine. But in most cases, those behind these busted game rooms get off with a misdemeanor or a fine, especially if it’s a first offense.
The media organizations' reporting prompted Manatee County commissioners to pursue a new ordinance requiring arcade operators to register for permits. It would allow officials “to differentiate the Dave and Busters of the world from Spin Fun Arcade,” according to Manatee County Commissioner Tal Siddique, who proposed the plan.
Commissioners directed staff this month to draft an ordinance modeled after one in Marion County that has stamped out the illegal operations.
Not everyone supports it, though. Among them is Commissioner George Kruse, who said during the board’s meeting that the state already has laws banning these operations and the county doesn’t need to add to them with its own regulations.
But the Spin Fun case helps explain why such reforms are on the table — despite raids, evidence and seized cash, Florida’s gambling laws leave many of these businesses operating in the gray area between what looks illegal and what can actually be proven.
Inside the undercover raid at Bradenton’s Spin Fun Arcade
According to investigative reports obtained by Suncoast Searchlight and Bradenton Herald, the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office began its probe of Spin Fun Arcade in May 2023 as part of a broader effort to crack down on illegal gambling operations.
That month, deputies sent a cease-and-desist order, and the Florida Gaming Control Commission followed up weeks later with its own certified warning letter to the business — both based on complaints over illegal gambling activity. But neither notice apparently stopped the operation.
By late September, an undercover Manatee County Sheriff’s deputy decided to test the allegations himself. Using $80 from the sheriff’s office investigative fund, he went to the arcade, which sits in a small retail plaza on 14th Street West in Bradenton that also boasts a Starbucks and The Joint Chiropractic.
As detailed in the investigative report, the deputy approached a row of machines flashing casino graphics and took a seat at one called Ultimate Fire Link. He inserted a $20 bill, played several rounds and eventually cashed out at the counter, receiving $32 in cash for his printed ticket. The entire exchange was captured on a hidden camera.
Under Florida law, games of chance that offer cash payouts — regardless of skill — are prohibited outside of licensed casinos.
The rise of Florida’s adult arcades traces back more than a decade, when gambling dens began cropping up statewide under the guise of “internet cafés” and “sweepstakes” parlors. They offered casino-style games of chance they claimed were no different from McDonald’s Monopoly promotions — charging not per pull of a slot machine, but for the “internet time” used to play.
In response, then-Gov. Rick Scott signed a sweeping law in 2013 that closed the loophole, banning most electronic gambling devices while exempting legitimate promotions and the Florida Lottery. Yet despite the crackdown, the storefront casinos never entirely disappeared. Many rebranded as “adult arcades,” continuing to exploit gray areas in the law and leaving local law enforcement to sort out what’s legal and what’s not.
The undercover operation of Spin Fun in September 2023 provided deputies with the proof they needed to obtain a search warrant.
“It was clear that Spin Fun was attracting customers by awarding something of value based on an unpredictable assignment of entries/credits using casino-style games,” the deputy wrote in his investigative files. “Spin Fun was not operating as an ‘adult arcade’ with skill-based ‘amusement games or machines’ and payouts in merchandise only, as required ... This gaming scheme and the network of machines/devices was being used at Spin Fun as an illegal lottery.”
On Oct. 9, deputies executed that warrant. The raid, documented in a detailed evidence log and capias request later submitted to prosecutors, described the scene as something of a miniature casino. Investigators seized 95 slot machines, including several bearing the Bally logo, and recovered more than $40,000 in cash from the register, slot machines, ATM and back-office safes. They also removed computers, flash drives and 10 wall-mounted televisions.
The report noted that a Spin Fun employee told investigators her boss was a man named “Sam,” described as being Hispanic and in his 30s or 40s with curly hair, but she did not provide a last name. Nobody matching that name or description was charged for crimes related to Spin Fun either.
Also during the search, a woman named Stephanie Henson arrived and told deputies that she and her husband owned the cellular equipment that powered the arcade’s ATM — and that Kompothecras was the owner of both the machine and the business itself, according to the agency’s report summarizing her statement.
“Gary Kompothecras owns, stores, keeps, possesses, and permits the operation of devices that are legally defined as slot machines,” the Manatee Sheriff’s Office wrote in the capias request, a formal document outlining evidence and sent to prosecutors to determine whether to pursue charges.
“In conclusion,” the document stated, “MCSO has determined that Gary Kompothecras has had a substantial degree of control over and kept or maintained Spin Fun Arcade, and that Spin Fun Arcade was habitually kept or maintained for the purpose of gambling.”
Why prosecutors dropped the case despite seized slot machines and cash
The Manatee Sheriff’s Office forwarded the case file to the 12th Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office for potential prosecution.
But State Attorney Ed Brodsky, who had previously received at least one campaign donation from a company owned by Kompothecras, recused himself from the investigation, citing a conflict of interest. Gov. Ron DeSantis reassigned the case to the 20th Judicial Circuit, based in Fort Myers.
There, prosecutors reviewed the evidence and declined to file charges, citing insufficient proof that Kompothecras participated in — or even knew whether — illegal gambling was taking place inside his building.
In a one-page prosecutor’s summary obtained by Suncoast Searchlight, Assistant State Attorney J.D. Miller, who is chief of the Economic Crimes Unit, wrote that while deputies seized slot machines and documented cash payouts, “there is no evidence to suggest that [Kompothecras] was aware of the gambling.” The only direct link, Miller wrote, was “one person’s claim that he owns the ATM machine.”
Nothing in the state attorney’s file indicates that prosecutors interviewed Henson.
The decision not to file charges effectively closed the case. Spin Fun reopened in the same location and continued operating into the summer of 2025, after which it closed following the media organizations' call to Kompothecras.
Manatee Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Randy Warren told reporters this week that the slot machines seized in the 2023 raid were destroyed.
Warren said deputies continue to monitor arcades throughout Manatee County, conducting spot checks and issuing written warnings that explain the law. He said investigators can show up at any time and shut a business down if illegal gambling is observed.
“These operators know what they’re doing,” Warren said. “They make good money while they can, and when we show up, they lose their machines and the cash that’s inside. But it’s part of their cost of doing business.”
He said enforcement will continue for as long as the arcades keep operating in violation of state law. “If it looks like Las Vegas and pays out like Las Vegas, it’s illegal here.”
Who is Gary Kompothecras? The 1-800-ASK-GARY founder at the center of the case
Property and business records reviewed by Suncoast Searchlight show that the commercial building at 5234 14th Street West — home to Spin Fun Arcade — is owned by 5234 14th Street LLC, a company solely managed by Kompothecras.
The Florida Division of Corporations lists the company’s registered address as 4054 Sawyer Road in Sarasota, the same address used for several of Kompothecras’s other business ventures.
Kompothecras, 65, is widely known across Florida as the founder of the 1-800-ASK-GARY lawyer referral service, a brand made famous by its rapid-fire radio jingles and rap-style ads that started saturating airwaves in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
A chiropractor by training, he built the service into a lucrative enterprise that once held the naming rights to the amphitheater in Tampa, now known as the MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheatre.
Beyond business, Kompothecras has long been a prominent figure in state Republican politics. He has donated tens of thousands of dollars to the Republican National Committee, the Florida Republican Party and Friends of Ron DeSantis, among other committees.
He has also been a bar owner, movie producer and real estate developer, at times courting controversy — including over a proposed Siesta Key hotel project that drew heavy opposition. In 2022, he hosted a fundraiser for Gov. DeSantis at his waterfront Siesta Key estate that featured a live elephant, according to the Business Observer.
While Kompothecras has maintained that he is merely the landlord, legal experts say property owners can still be held responsible if they knowingly allow illegal gambling operations on their premises.
Florida’s gambling statute, Chapter 849, states that any person who “provides or operates a house, booth, tent, shelter or other place for the purpose of gaming or gambling” can be prosecuted — language broad enough to include landlords.
Kevin Jursinski, a Florida attorney with decades of experience in gaming law, including representing casino operators before the sweepstakes loophole was closed, said the state’s gambling statute is broad enough that landlords could be liable if they knowingly profit from illegal gambling.
Jursinski spoke generally about Florida law and was not told Kompothecras’ name or any details of the Spin Fun case.
“Obviously, the owner [of the building] has control over the store,” Jursinski said. “He knows what’s going on in there, and the lease will usually say what you can and can’t do. If the windows are wrapped with 777 or that kind of thing, it’s hard to say you didn’t know what was going on.”
Sarasota County Sheriff Kurt Hoffman said earlier this year that his agency has also targeted similar adult arcades and routinely notifies both operators and property owners when sending cease-and-desist letters. Hoffman did not comment on the Spin Fun case specifically.
“They know it’s illegal — they just try to make as much money as they can, then get out of dodge,” Hoffman said. “We’ll be playing whack-a-mole for a long time.”
This project is a collaboration between the Bradenton Herald and Suncoast Searchlight, a nonprofit newsroom of the Community News Collaborative serving Sarasota, Manatee and DeSoto counties. Learn more at suncoastsearchlight.org.
