Alabama Supreme Court justices dealt the state’s electronic bingo gambling industry a deadly blow Nov. 13 when they sided with the Governor’s Task Force on Illegal Gambling. Yet gambling supporters aren’t convinced the high court’s 59-page ruling is the final “nail in the coffin” for electronic bingo gambling halls across the state.
The case began eight months ago after the task force seized about 105 electronic bingo gambling machines from the White Hall Entertainment Center in Lowndes County. When Cornerstone Community Outreach, which operates the entertainment center, began steps to prevent future task force raids, Gov. Bob Riley and his team sought a court ruling on the legality of the machines.
Justices agreed with the task force Nov. 13 that the machines “have none of the elements of human skill and interaction that are fundamental to the game of bingo.”
The facility has reportedly shut its doors and will not reopen until “the determination has been made that all machines are in compliance,” Cornerstone Attorney Joe Espy told The Associated Press.
Although numerous gambling supporters have argued that bingo is not gambling, the justices said “bingo is a lottery.” They added that constitutional amendments allowing bingo in certain counties or municipalities are “exceptions to the lottery prohibition,” which “should be narrowly construed.”
Realizing the need to address the “legality of so-called ‘electronic bingo’ machines,” the justices listed characteristics of “the game commonly or traditionally known as bingo”:
• Each player uses one or more cards with spaces arranged in five columns and five rows, with an alphanumeric or similar designation assigned to each space.
• Alphanumeric or similar designations are randomly drawn and announced one by one.
• In order to play, each player must pay attention to the values announced; if one of the values matches a value on one or more of the player’s cards, the player must physically act by marking [the] card accordingly.
• A player can fail to pay proper attention or to properly mark his or her card and thereby miss an opportunity to [win].
• A player must recognize that his or her card has a “bingo,” i.e., a predetermined pattern of matching values, and, in turn, announce to the other players and the announcer that this is the case before any other player does so.
• The game … contemplates a group activity in which multiple players compete against each other to be the first to … mark a card with the predetermined winning pattern and announce that fact.
The justices added that substantial evidence did not exist to prove the electronic gambling machines seized from the White Hall bingo hall “constituted the game of bingo.” Instead they said testimony revealed the machines “operate almost exactly like slot machines.”
Riley called the ruling a clear victory.
“There is not a machine that we know of today that would be considered bingo under the … definitions. … We have bingo parlors that are closing down voluntarily … because there is no question about whether they are legal,” he said. “We hope the attorney general and the district attorneys … will recognize that it does not matter what they think. … At some point, they have to put whether they support bingo or not behind them and uphold the law.”
But Attorney General Troy King is not convinced. More about King’s and others’ reactions will be in next week’s issue.
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