Taylor, TX Gambling & Gaming: Game Room Regulations (2026)
Key Facts
- Governing law
- City Code §§ 27-39, 27-41, 27-44
- Annual tax
- $15.00 per skill-or-pleasure machine
- License required
- City tax collector issues per-machine license
- Unlicensed machines
- Declared a public nuisance, subject to seizure
- Records duty
- Owner keeps 2 years of machine records
- Adopted
- Ordinance of October 23, 1962
Summary
Taylor taxes and licenses every skill or pleasure coin-operated machine, the broad category covering arcade, marble and pinball-style amusement devices such as eight-liners, under Chapter 27's Coin-Operated Devices article. City Code § 27-41 levies a $15.00 annual occupation tax per machine, and § 27-44 requires the tax collector to issue a machine-specific license before it can operate.
Skill or pleasure coin-operated machine means every coin-operated machine of any kind or character whatsoever, when such machine dispenses or is used or is capable of being used or operated for amusement or pleasure ... The following are expressly included within said term: Marble machine, marble table machines ... and all other coin-operated machines which dispense or afford skill or pleasure. ... Every owner who owns, controls, possesses, exhibits, displays, or who permits to be exhibited or displayed, in the city any coin-operated machine shall pay, and there is hereby levied on each coin-operated machine ... an annual occupation tax in the amount of one-quarter of the amount of the occupation tax levied by the state from time to time which tax is now $60.00 per year and which means that the amount of the initial tax levied by the city shall be $15.00 annually. ... (a)Upon payment of the fee required by this article for any coin-operated machine to the city tax collector, he shall issue a license in the name of the city.
Full Breakdown
Chapter 27, Article III of the Code of Ordinances, adopted in 1962 and amended in 1992, defines and taxes coin-operated machines generally, splitting them into music machines and skill or pleasure coin-operated machines, the category the code defines under § 27-39 to include marble machines, marble table machines, marble shooting machines, miniature race track, football, golf and bowling machines, and all other coin-operated machines which dispense or afford skill or pleasure, the same broad category into which modern eight-liner and game-room machines fall. 00. Once the tax is paid, § 27-44(a) requires the city tax collector to issue a license in the city's name for that specific machine, stating the fee paid, the owner, the machine's character and serial number, and the year covered; § 27-44(b) requires the license to stay physically attached to the machine.
00 fee to the tax collector. This is a per-machine occupation tax and license scheme rather than a business-level game-room permit, and it predates the eight-liner-specific rules some Texas counties have adopted under Local Government Code Chapter 234, but it remains the operative Taylor ordinance governing skill-or-pleasure coin-operated machines within city limits.
Violations & Fines
Operating a skill-or-pleasure coin-operated machine in Taylor without paying the annual occupation tax and obtaining the machine-specific license required by §§ 27-41 and 27-44 exposes the machine to seizure as a public nuisance under § 27-45. An owner who fails to keep the two years of required machine records for inspection, or who violates the article's terms, can have every license forfeited by the tax collector under § 27-47, with no new license issued for a year absent the tax collector's discretion.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Taylor require a license for arcade or eight-liner machines?
What happens if a machine's tax goes unpaid?
Is this a game room business permit or something else?
Sources & Official References
Other rules in Taylor
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