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Editorial: Raids of bingo operations in Alabama seem pointless


Filed Under: Openings and Closings | Opinion
More on: alabama, jurisdiction, luther strange, poarch creek
   
Newspaper questions why Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange continues to raid bingo operations in the state but fails to bring charges against the people involved:
For several years, the State of Alabama has played hardball with those who would dare to operate electronic bingo games within our borders. The exception is tribal casinos, and that’s an entirely different matter, but if the state had jurisdiction, the attorney general would send his people in to raid those facilities, too.

“From my first day in office, I have worked to ensure that illegal gambling laws are enforced consistently across the state,” Attorney General Luther Strange said this week after raiding four electronic bingo facilities in west Alabama Monday. “These casinos were operating in open defiance of the rule of law and we have been left with no alternative but to treat this as we would any other law enforcement matter.”

The only problem is that’s not entirely true. Years after the state eviscerated the bingo casino at Country Crossing in Houston County (now operating with traditional paper bingo as Center Stage Alabama) and a bingo casino at Victoryland in Macon County, the legality of the machines remains murky. But more to the point, if the attorney general’s office treated these cases as it would any other law enforcement matter, there’d be a raft of arrests with every raid and seizure. And there hasn’t been.

Get the Story:
Editorial: If electronic bingo is illegal gambling, why no arrests? (The Dothan Eagle 4/2)

Also Today:
Alabama attorney general: More than 1,000 gambling machines seized at casinos in Greene County (AP 3/31)
Wetumpka businesses weigh costs, benefits of new Indian casino (WSFA 3/31)

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