Casper Man Charged With Illegal Gambling Says Wyoming's Ban Is Unconstitutional

A Casper man charged with running a professional gambling operation out of three businesses is challenging the law leveled against him, claiming that Wyoming’s gambling law and definition are so vague, they’re unconstitutional.

Scott Lee Schroefel, who turns 55 this year, was charged in September with engaging in professional gambling, a felony punishable by up to three years in prison and $3,000 in fines.

In a Friday motion by his attorney Ryan Semerad, Schroefel argues to Natrona County District Court Judge Catherine E. Wilking that the law with which he’s charged is so vague and riddled with nonsensical exceptions, normal people wouldn’t know how to comply with it and state officials could bring their own biases or interpretations to it.

That motion is pending in the district court.

The Wyoming Gaming Commission and later, Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation, took an interest in Schroefel in June of 2023, when a woman called the commission to complain that the Mocha Moose coffee shop in Casper refused to pay her son roughly $7,000 in gambling winnings.

The investigation that followed, which included digital and in-person searches, a confidential informant, interviews and bank records, led the Natrona County District Attorney’s Office to allege that between Jan. 1, 2020, and Jan. 31, 2024, Schroefel helped others gamble so he could derive a profit.

He’s accused of taking bets and cashing out winnings for online gambling sites, through his businesses.

The Law, The Carveouts

Gambling means risking money for possible gain on a gambling device, under state law. The law has carveout exceptions legalizing pari-mutuel wagering and skill-based amusement games where there can be an element of chance, but skill is the primary factor in success n those games.

Schroefel’s motion notes that while the law requires a laboratory test be done to indicate whether the skill-based game is legal, the test doesn’t have to prove that the game is legal under the carveout.

The result, he argues, is that normal people can’t tell the difference between skill-based games and slot machines, making the laws surrounding them unfairly murky.

The Attack

Schroefel’s motion attacks Wyoming’s gambling laws in multiple ways. It calls the professional gambling law, and the “gambling” definition on which it depends, unconstitutionally vague as applied to his case. He claims the statute contains confusing exceptions letting people gamble under professional contracts and social relationships.

The motion also claims the law is altogether vague – no matter whom it’s charged against – because it contains a clause exempting conduct that may be legalized in the future, or “hereafter expressly authorized by law.”

Social Relationship

People in Wyoming can gamble incidental to a “bona fide social relationship.” For example, friends can bet money on a poker game.

The woman who turned Schroefel in told investigators that people would pull up to the drive-up window at the Mocha Moose and ask for a code, give money to the employee and gamble online to win a payout at the shop, says the case affidavit.

Only people known to the employee or referred by another regular customer could get these codes, she said.

Wyoming Gaming Commission special agent Michael Hotard developed a confidential informant and investigated first the Mocha Moose, then Schroefel’s other businesses.

“The State claims Mr. Schroefel used his businesses as locations where known customers, friends and referrals could deposit cash for later use in online games where they could wager and potentially win cash awards,” wrote Semerad in his client’s motion. “Put another way, a ‘social’ … relationship existed between Mr. Schroefel and the people he allegedly helped wager money online.”

The Wyoming Attorney General’s Office wrote in a 2024 memo to the legislative Joint Appropriations Committee that though Colorado has decided to look at social relationships on a case-by-case basis, it “may be helpful” for the Legislature to clarify that law. 

Contracts

Another exception in the law says it's not gambling if it’s under “bona fide business transactions which are valid under the law of contracts.”

The motion calls the term “bona fide business transactions” ambiguous, especially as Wyoming has embraced the gaming industry increasingly and allowed more contracts under it starting in about 2013.

The Time Traveler

Lastly, the motion says the court should call the state’s gambling law unconstitutional because it exempts any act that may be authorized in the future.

“Gambling” doesn’t include acts “hereafter expressly authorized by law,” says the state’s legal definition.

“This exclusion transforms the definition of ‘gambling’ into an ever-shifting target,” wrote Semerad. “As the law changes in the future, (that carveout) makes the law change in the past too. Consequently, what constitutes illegal gambling for the time being is always subject to retroactive revision.” 

A Little More From The Investigation

When executing a search warrant during his investigation of Schroefel’s alleged gambling operation, Hotard noticed “several associations” between Schroefel and a man who’d had several earlier convictions from another state for conspiracy and illegal gambling, says the evidentiary affidavit in the case.

Investigators found numerous texts between the two discussing specific gaming sites, money, credits, accounts and raffles, says the document.

Wyoming Gaming Commission special agents conducted an undercover purchase of an illegal online gambling account bought from one of Schroefel’s alleged co-conspirators, the affidavit says.

It alleges that in 2020, Schroefel’s bank denied a credit application citing “unreliable source of repayment due to income derived from business practices which are illegal under federal law,” says the document.

Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.