An advertisement appearing recently on television throughout the state left the impression that The Alabama Baptist supported Senate Bill (SB) 261 and House Bill (HB) 908, both in the Alabama Legislature. Nothing could be further from the truth. Both bills would result in casino gambling within the state and The Alabama Baptist has consistently opposed all efforts to expand legalized gambling in Alabama.
The advertisement shows a front page of The Alabama Baptist and highlights a quotation from the state Baptist paper saying “video poker is the ‘crack cocaine’ of gambling.” That part is exactly right. That is the editorial position of this writer, which is consistent with the position adopted by Alabama Baptists during a recent annual meeting.
The advertisement then declares SB 261 and HB 908 will eliminate the video gambling evil — video poker — and urges viewers to ask their state senators and representatives to support the bills. This is the deception. No part of it is accurate.
The bills in question do propose to limit the number of video gambling machines in a “business location” to four. Legislators were told this would eliminate the video gambling arcades that are popping up like dandelions across the state. Only small businesses would have a few games on their premises, gambling advocates said.
South Carolina had similar language in their legislation. Gamblers got around the regulation by dividing buildings into smaller rooms like an apartment building is divided into individual living units. Thus, before video gambling was declared illegal in South Carolina, one could walk into a rather large building and find it divided into a honeycomb of smaller rooms, each containing the specified number of video gambling machines.
The Alabama bills specify that any “business location” must contain at least 300 square feet to be subject to the limitations of the proposed legislation. That means one could take a room 17 feet by 17 feet, line two walls with video gambling machines and then put two more rows of machines back to back down the center of the room and be completely legal. A room 17’ x 17’ has 289 square feet, under the 300 square foot minimum to be subject to SB 261 and HB 809.
The limitation in South Carolina stopped nothing. Is there any reason to think it would stop anything in Alabama? None at all. The limitation is nothing but a ruse and the gambling crowd knows it.
Furthermore, the deceptive advertisement was placed by the Alabama Amusement and Music Association. This is the trade group for pinball machines, jukeboxes, video gambling machines and other coin-operated games.
After The Alabama Baptist did its first story on the mushrooming of video gambling in the state, members of Alabama Amusement and Music Association threatened lawsuits if any effort was made to limit its activity. Is it reasonable that a few months later this same trade association would be promoting legislation to do away with video gambling? Again the answer is no.
The advertisement is deceptive in another way. Both bills would result in casino gambling at the state’s four dog tracks. The bill states that video gambling devices — slot machines and other such devices — would be legal at the dog tracks and no limit would be placed on the amount of winnings offered.
Wide-open casino gambling — that is what both bills are about. If passed, the result would be more dog tracks where casino gambling would be legal as well as video gambling arcades throughout the state. Alabama would have the worse of both. The deception of the advertisement should not be surprising. The whole process of these bills has been filled with deception. Before the advertisement described in this column was aired, gamblers renewed the charges that Alabamians opposed to gambling were on the payrolls of Mississippi’s casinos. That is an old charge trotted out so many times it is haggard and limp. Despite being repeated many times, no evidence of any kind has ever been produced. That charge is just another move by the gambling crowd and their lackeys to deceive the Alabama public.
The information about video gambling operators in South Carolina getting around the limit on the number of machines is not new. It has been shared so many times that only the willfully ignorant can claim they did not know it. The wording of the two bills clearly states that wide-open casino-type gambling at dog tracks would be legalized.
That means any person who voted for either of these bills or who voted to bring these bills to the floor or who voted to stop debate and force a vote on the bills supports both casino gambling in Alabama as well as the video gambling arcades. For any member of the state Legislature to say otherwise is just another attempt to deceive the public.
Deception is not an Alabama virtue. It is long past the time when those involved in the law-making process of this state should abandon their deceptive backroom practices and be truthful and straightforward with the citizens of this state. Truthfulness is an Alabama virtue.
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