JARED SOARES The Roanoke Times

Bennett's Internet was among four Internet parlors that were raided Thursday in Roanoke County. No charges have been filed.

You can call them Internet parlors or Internet sweepstakes cafes. You can call what goes on there gambling, or you can call it good, clean fun.

Whatever it is, for now, you can call it over in Roanoke County.

Roanoke County police, with help from state and federal authorities, simultaneously raided four so-called Internet cafes Thursday afternoon, seizing computers, cash registers, business records and cash for evidence of what a police statement called illegal gambling and money laundering.

Police executed search warrants at sites on Brambleton Avenue, at Lamplighter Mall in the 5500 block of Williamson Road, in the 5900 block of Williamson Road and in the 3100 block of Peters Creek Road.

The entrance to Bennett's Internet on Brambleton Avenue in Roanoke County was blocked with police tape as Roanoke County police took inventory of seized equipment and interviewed store workers. A county police van was parked outside to haul away what Lt. Chuck Mason described as gaming computers, records and other seized items.

The raids followed what Mason called a "complicated and enormously time-consuming" investigation by county police, the state attorney general's office and the FBI that involved surveillance and undercover work in which vice detectives "examined what appeared to be illegal financial activities at each of the cafe locations," Mason said.

All of the seized evidence will be analyzed by county detectives and FBI agents. Mason said that would take "some months."

No one has been charged with a crime.

"I don't feel like we've violated any laws," said Ronnie Bennett, owner of Bennett's Internet.

It's not the first time Bennett's business has been raided. It was located in Roanoke until city authorities searched it last year, prompting the move to Roanoke County, which Bennett said he thought would be friendlier because one business like his was already operating there.

City authorities later returned his computers, along with $5,000 in cash they had seized.

Mason said the county vice/narcotics unit started investigating the parlors soon after the first opened in Lamplighter Mall about a year ago. The probe expanded as other operations popped up, Mason said. Police received numerous citizen complaints, he said.

"They were unhappy about what they considered an illegal gambling operation going on in their neighborhood and around businesses," Mason said.

Mason declined to elaborate on the type of illegal gambling and money laundering police believe occurred at the cafes. He referred questions on legal matters to Roanoke County Commonwealth's Attorney Randy Leach, who declined to comment.

Under Virginia law, it's illegal for a private citizen to run a game of chance that pays a prize and requires participants to provide something of value to play.

"Anything that is free is not gambling," Bennett argued Thursday.

In previous interviews with The Roanoke Times, Bennett said he sells Internet time to his customers for $6 an hour -- cash only. An hour of time comes with 600 electronic sweepstakes tickets. But, Bennett said, he gives away 100 sweepstakes tickets to any adult who asks for them, so there's no required purchase. He said that makes his operation legal.

Customers can play computer games that look like Keno, slot machines and cards to find out if their tickets are winners, but Bennett said they don't have to. They can just come to the counter to find out.

The top prize in a pool is $3,000 at Bennett's Internet, along with 400,000 prizes of $1 or less and many prizes in between, according to Bennett. A new prize pool usually begins about once a week.

Such operations are relatively new to Virginia but common in some states, including North Carolina.

Police didn't name the four cafes they raided Thursday, listing only their addresses. According to Roanoke County business license records, the raided cafes in addition to Bennett's Internet are:

n Connected Inc., at 5933 Williamson Road, licensed Feb. 11.

n SLG Cyber Cafe in the 5500 block of Williamson Road, licensed March 16, 2009, and owned by Steven Gustaitis.

n Peters Creek Business Center on Peters Creek Road, licensed Aug. 18, 2009, and owned by Lynn Turner.

Turner said in February she and Gustaitis were in business together.

"We're just trying to run a business like everybody else and legitimately," Turner said in a story in The Roanoke Times. Neither Turner nor Gustaitis could be reached for comment Thursday.

A representative of Connected Inc. couldn't be reached.

The cafes aren't the first in Virginia to be questioned by law enforcement. Last year, authorities raided two such operations in Danville.

Robert Adams, an assistant commonwealth's attorney in Danville, said in August that one charge of conducting an illegal gambling operation was dismissed because the judge didn't believe there was enough evidence to prosecute the case.

The outcome of the second case wasn't clear.

Asked if getting raided, shut down and taken to court might be part of what it takes to establish his business, Bennett said, "That's basically what we have to do."

Staff writers Mike Gangloff and Lerone Graham and news researcher Belinda Harris contributed to this report.