Minister leads boycott of convenience stores

Monday, June 27th 2005, 6:26 am

By: News On 6

WHITEFIELD, Okla. (AP) -- An eastern Oklahoma minister is leading a boycott of local convenience stores with telephone card devices that critics say operate like slot machines.

The Reverend Kevin Duncan, pastor of the Whitefield Baptist Church, began the informal boycott two months ago. Several parishioners have joined the boycott.

Players insert between $1 and $100 in the machines, then push a button. In return, they get a phone card of nominal value and a chance at cash.

The manager of one store in Stigler, six miles east of Whitefield, says he paid out the maximum $1,600 prize three times one weekend.

Neal Leader, senior assistant attorney general, says the devices fit under what he called Oklahoma's "very broad definition" of illegal slot machines.