Madison County gets state’s first bingo ruling

After years of countless legal motions and court proceedings on electronic bingo gambling across the state, Alabama received its first bingo ruling Sept. 28 when federal Judge Lynwood Smith declared Triana’s operation illegal.

The case began after officers with the Madison County Sheriff’s Office shut down the Alabama Veterans of Foreign Wars’ (VFW) electronic gambling establishment in November 2007 and seized 200 electronic bingo gambling machines.

Sheriff Blake Dorning was sued by the Texas VFW, which ran the establishment.

The organization claimed that “the criminal statutes applicable to bingo games in Alabama are void for vagueness” and said its constitutional rights had been violated through “unreasonable search and seizure” of its property, among other things.

In his ruling, Smith said Triana’s gaming operation was not legal because the Texas VFW “violated various provisions of Amendment 387” to the Alabama Constitution, which allows bingo in Madison County.

“The games were not operated by a charity,” Smith wrote. “They were not operated only on a premises owned or leased by the entity on whose behalf the game was played. Multiple individuals and companies contracted to provide services for the gaming operation, in exchange for a fee or percentage of receipts. The games were not conducted ‘directly and solely’ by a single nonprofit entity. Prizes awarded may have exceeded the explicit dollar limitations for prizes.”

According to Smith’s ruling, the Alabama and Texas VFWs received less than 10 percent of gross revenues, with the Texas VFW receiving more than Alabama’s.

More than 90 percent of gross revenues were directed to an individual, who structured and ran the operation despite not being a veteran or a member of any VFW post, and companies created and controlled by him.

Although Smith did not rule on the legality of the electronic bingo gambling machines used in Triana, he referred to former Jefferson County District Attorney David Barber’s case against the Jefferson County Racing Association in which similar machines were deemed slot machines.

“These similarities compel the conclusion that the electronic bingo games at issue in this case constitute illegal slot machines under Alabama law,” Smith wrote in his ruling.