Perhaps someone local to Pittsburgh can correct me on the exact specifics, but places serving alcohol were limited to five "amusement devices" at a tax rate of $50 or $100 per year. If you had six "amusement devices" the tax rate shot up to something like $1000 per year for all "devices" including the original five. In this case "amusement devices" wasn't just pinball and video games, but also included jukeboxes, pool tables, skill cranes etc. I might be off on some of the numbers above, but that's why until recently Pittsburgh didn't have a barcade scene. Apparently the laws were relaxed or repealed in the past couple of years.
Wisconsin also has some weird laws regarding tournaments IIRC. Something about no money exchanging hands at all or something.