At first glance, “Dragon’s Ascent” looks like an ordinary arcade game. Eight players huddle over their joysticks, competing to shoot down the colorful dragons darting across a large central screen.

But unlike old school games of yesteryear where a good run might notch you credits for another play, a skillful “Dragon’s Ascent” player can win something much more valuable: cold, hard cash.

And that fact alone has lawmakers in both D.C. and Virginia scrambling to understand what exactly the machines are—games of skill or games of chance?—and whether they should even be allowed. The question comes a little late for Virginia, where regulators say there are more than 6,000 in Virginia convenience stores alone, with thousands more in bars, restaurants, gas stations, and laundromats.

That’s led to a pitched lobbying battle in Richmond, where lottery regulators and some lawmakers are fighting to ban the games altogether, equating them with “low-rent slot machines.” But some industry players, including Pace-O-Matic, the Georgia-based company that makes “Dragon’s Ascent” and other similar games, insist their products are legal games of skill, and therefore should be taxed and regulated—but not prohibited.

Currently, there are only a handful of machines in D.C., but regulators want to make sure they won’t have to play catch up after the fact.

At the core of the fight in D.C., Virginia, and other states is whether the games rely on skill, chance, or something in between. If it’s chance, regulators say the games are illegal gambling devices, little more than a souped-up version of Pac-Man with money on the line. But Mike Barley, a spokesman for Pace-O-Matic, insists their games are more than that.

“We take chance out of the equation. And that’s the main difference between our games and a typical slot machine or gambling device. If you’re skillful and patient, you can win all the time,” he says.

Pace-O-Matic first approached the Virginia Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control in 2017, which decided that its games had enough skill involved that they would not be considered illegal gambling machines. That gave the company its first foothold in Virginia, which Barley says has been good for local bars and restaurants.

“What they’ve found is that it draws in their people, and they just stay longer. Rather than coming in for 10 minutes and having a sandwich or a beer, they may stay a little bit longer and have another drink. It’s allowing these businesses to grow,” he says.

But some Virginia regulators are less enthused about the machines. Kevin Hall, the executive director of the Virginia Lottery, says the liquor board’s green light to Pace-O-Matic opened the floodgates to all manner of other operators. Hall says many of them are simply placing gambling-like machines in bars, markets, and laundromats. And they’ve had a real impact, he says: He estimates they will eat into lottery sales to the tune of $140 million this year, leading to less money going from the lottery to schools.

“None of them are regulated, licensed, or taxed. And they are here in large numbers and they are cannibalizing lottery sales and profits,” says Hall. “This is an industry that has a very colorful history of seeking to exploit loopholes and openings in order to flood into the market and make as much money as fast as they can before regulations catch up with them.”

Hall has asked lawmakers in Richmond to do something—anything. So has Gov. Ralph Northam, who supports legislation to tax and regulate electronic betting games. Barley says Pace-O-Matic favors regulations, which would help bring some clarity to the murky distinction between games of skill and chance. But even if legislation were to pass, the issue could simply move to the courts: There have been legal fights in other states over how exactly to define and differentiate games that are part-skill, part-chance.

But one bill moving through the House of Delegates would sidestep the debate altogether, basically banning all electronic betting games. Del. David Bulova (D-Fairfax) wrote that bill, and says the games and their manufacturers have rushed into the state while avoiding deeper policy questions he thinks should be settled by lawmakers.

Bulova notes that the process has been very deliberative when it comes to regulating sports betting and casinos. These new machines, however, have slipped in under the radar. “I think it sends the wrong message for somebody to come in, they use a loophole in the law and then to go ahead and ask for forgiveness and say, ‘Hey, since we’re here, we want to be taxed and regulated,’” he says.

While a similar battle has been shaping up in D.C., regulators and legislators hope to avoid trying to regulate after the fact. Late last year, the owners of Penn Social, a large bar in Penn Quarter, approached liquor regulators to ask for permission to bring “Dragon’s Ascent” to the city. (Pace-O-Matic says D.C. would be the company’s first market for the game.) D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine opined that as a game of skill, it is therefore allowed, and the game could go live as early as this week.

“If you look at Virginia, you have a situation where you have all these machines and then you have to figure out how you’re going to regulate them. We thought it made more sense to do that before the first machines started being operation,” says Fred Moosally, the director of the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration.

The D.C. Council is also expected to pass emergency legislation this week regulating electronic betting games, largely by limiting them to bars and restaurants, setting an age limit for players and laying out guidelines for marketing.

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t confusion and uncertainty among local lawmakers. At a breakfast session last month, Council members debated the line between a game of chance and a game of skill. After that meeting, Pace-O-Matic brought “Dragon’s Ascent” into a conference room in the Wilson Building for staffers and legislators to play—and better understand.

Some councilmembers remain concerned that legislation to regulate the machines is moving too quickly. Councilmember Elissa Silverman (I-At Large), said last month she worries the bill under consideration would create winners and losers in the industry, and she wonders whether the need for regulation outweighs the overall threat posed by these electronic games of skill.

“I would prefer to just be thoughtful and do a permanent piece of legislation,” she said during a hearing in late January. “I just don’t see the ‘Dragon’s Ascent’ at the gate, 10,000 machines lined up on Eastern Avenue waiting to come into the District.”

But Kevin Hall of the Virginia Lottery says D.C. should remain as far ahead of the curve as possible.

“Be careful,” he says. “There are many actors in this industry, some more reputable than others, but there is a clear pattern of dishonesty and dodgy behavior.”

And while Mike Barkley of Pace-O-Matic may be at odds with Hall on how far regulations should go, he agrees that there are good and bad players in the market of electronic betting machines—and it can be tough for consumers, regulators, and lawmakers to distinguish between the two.

He points out that his company’s model is to approach regulatory authorities first to make sure they can enter a region or market legally: “The problem with that is once we come in, there are a slew of manufacturers that don’t do that. They are marketing illegal slot machines, and they come in right on our coattails.”

And he notes that if that happens without clear regulations in place it can be harmful to not only his business, but to everyone.

This story originally appeared on WAMU.