The proposed “Bingo for Books” legislation calling for a statewide constitutional amendment to allow high stakes bingo at all Alabama dog tracks was approved by a voice vote of the House of Representatives Tourism and Travel Committee April 7. If passed by the full House, the measure will appear on the November ballot.
Introduced in the House and the Senate on March 2, the bill passed the Senate 21–9 March 18. “I think it (the House vote) is going to be close but I don’t think our people are going to waffle on us,” said Dan Ireland, executive director of the Alabama Citizen Action Program and a vocal opponent of the legislation. “This is just a bill to make the track operators rich. The more I read it the worse it sounds.”
The bill proposes a 10 percent state tax on the net revenue of bingo in electronic or card formats. The funds generated, an estimated $50 million a year, would be designated for textbooks, technology and other classroom materials. Even though the bill does not allow for slot machines or video poker, opponents of the bill believe its passage would open the door to those and other forms of legalized gambling in Alabama.
Last year, constitutional amendments were passed allowing high-stakes bingo at Victoryland in Macon County and Greenetrack in Greene County. A portion of the proceeds from those games goes to local schools and nonprofit agencies. Gambling halls on Poarch Indian reservations in Atmore, Wetumpka and Montgomery also offer high-stakes bingo, but those establishments fall under federal jurisdiction and are not taxable by the state.
“We’re just going to let the tracks have exactly what the Indians have,” explained Sen. Gerald Dial, D-Lineville, one of the bill’s sponsors. “I can’t understand the mind-set of these people who say it’s going to spread gambling. We’ve got gambling. We’re just trying to capture the tax from it.”
But gambling opponents still fear what will come next if this bill passes. The electronic bingo games in Greene County are already being billed as “Las Vegas style gambling” on Birmingham-area TV ads.
Video gambling reopens
In other gambling related news in Alabama, adult video arcades in Jefferson County may reopen. Shut down for more than a year, the arcades found hope for new life when Jefferson County Circuit Judge Dan King ruled some of the video games are games of skill.
Currently no state law exists about the games, so city, county and state officials have formed differing opinions and rulings, thus confusing the issue for many arcade owners and patrons.
In 2001 the Alabama Supreme Court issued an advisory opinion by four justices stating that games of chance are illegal in Alabama. A 1996 state law, known as the “Chuck E. Cheese” law, authorizes games of skill, so arcade owners are fighting to prove their games are games of skill.
Arthur Green, district attorney for the Bessemer Cutoff, led the fight against adult video arcades in 2002 and has pledged to do the same again.
(TAB contributed)
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