According to a 1997 unanimous opinion of the Court of Criminal Appeals, authored by now-Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb, the term bingo as used in local constitutional amendments means nothing other than “the ordinary game of bingo.” Acknowledging “this state’s strong public policy against lotteries as expressed in 65 of the Alabama Constitution,” the Court of Criminal Appeals unanimously declared that “bingo” is a “narrow exception to the prohibition of lotteries in the Alabama Constitution.”
Accordingly, the Court held that “no expression in [an] ordinance [governing the operation of bingo] can be construed to include anything other than the ordinary game of bingo,” lest the ordinance be “inconsistent with the Constitution of Alabama.” See Foster v. State, 705 So. 2d 534, 537–538 (Ala. Crim. App. 1997).
In 2006, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that a slot machine is illegal, no matter what it’s called.
In Barber v. Jefferson County Racing Association, the Supreme Court ruled that machines which “look like, sound like, and attract the same class of customers as conventional slot machines, and, when integrated with the servers, serve essentially the same function as … slot machines,” are illegal in Alabama.
(Information provided by Gov. Bob Riley through Executive Order #44)
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