The Associated Press
Article from The Birmingham News Nov. 7, 2003
To the surprise of some legislators, the amendment approved by Macon County voters Tuesday will allow bingo games to be played at the VictoryLand dog track and other venues with unlimited pots.
Players could win “a million dollars,” said Rep. Johnny Ford, R-Tuskegee, who pushed the proposed bingo law through the House. The amendment Macon County residents voted on was not the one many legislators thought they had passed.
In fact, at one point the Alabama House rejected the version with no limits on the winning pots. But Ford said Thursday he used a little “clever maneuvering” to substitute his version before the bill received final passage. He said he did it to pump money and jobs into his mostly black and low-income county.
“You see our county has been treated unfairly down through the years,” Ford said. “It is necessary to use whatever political maneuver I could to get our people the right to vote.”
Voters in Greene County also passed a bill Tuesday that legalized bingo games, which could be held at the GreeneTrack dog track. It was originally introduced with an unlimited pot, but lawmakers amended it on the last day of the session to limit pots for one bingo session to $10,000.
Under both the Macon and Greene County bills, the bingo revenues have to be for a nonprofit organization, but the nonprofit could contract with VictoryLand to operate the games.
VictoryLand owner Milton McGregor said if a charity or nonprofit group picks his track as a site for the games, it could pump new life into his track, which he said has struggled to keep up with American Indian gaming centers in Wetumpka and Montgomery. He said bingo could mean as many as 100 new jobs at the track in Shorter, about 20 miles east of Montgomery.
“This is the best thing to happen to Macon County since 1982, when VictoryLand was approved,” McGregor said. He said that besides pumping money into local charities, it would help VictoryLand by increasing the amount of tax revenue the track pays the county.
He said the unlimited purses would make it easier for the track to compete with the Indian casinos, which offer unlimited cash payouts.
“I’m not opposed to Indians. I’m opposed to being treated differently. They pay no city or county or state taxes,” McGregor said.
Rep. Dick Brewbaker, R-Montgomery, said he did not like the way the bill was handled by Ford. He said he felt that many legislators did not know the bill allowed unlimited purses until after it had passed.
“Frankly it was a cheap trick. I hope it was worth it to Ford and to the people who operate dog tracks,” Brewbaker said. “The next time they have legislation, nobody is going to believe a word they tell them.”
Ford got the unlimited pot version passed with the help in the Senate from Sen. Myron Penn, D-Union Springs.
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