Editorial: Supporting law, not gambling

We’ve heard from several readers recently who have expressed dismay toward what they interpret as the Dothan Eagle editorial board’s support of gambling.

Some elucidation is in order. The Dothan Eagle has published many editorials condemning Gov. Bob Riley’s ill-conceived raid attempts on Country Crossing and VictoryLand, and has even praised the developers of Country Crossing for providing jobs and tax revenue in a stagnant economy.

What the Eagle has not done is take a stand on gambling one way or other.

We have tried to make that distinction clear by framing our arguments in this area on legal matters, not moral grounds — what is or isn’t allowed rather than what should or should not be allowed.

The bingo issue is byzantine, twisted by various laws, constitutional amendments, local regulations, Indian compacts and previous court rulings that have allowed electronic bingo to thrive on Indian land in our state and in sites such as VictoryLand, Country Crossing, Greenetrack and White Hall. Just last week, in the midst of the furor, came the announcement that another electronic bingo parlor was to open in Chickasaw. Three hours after that facility opened on Thursday, the governor’s task force shut it down.

Electronic bingo has been unmolested for years in the bingo parlor at VictoryLand, as the games conformed to a mishmash of laws that allowed it there.

***

Several years ago, a constitutional amendment was put before the people of Alabama that would allow charitable bingo to be played in Houston County. The intention was to allow the traditional “manual” form of bingo that has been played for many years. The amendment, which would exempt Houston County from the state’s prohibition on gambling, or “lotteries,” with regard to bingo, passed. Charitable bingo games, in which a portion of the proceeds goes to charity, commenced in several areas in the county.

When the Houston County Commission decided to do what was necessary to bring in the Country Crossing development, it rewrote the regulations pertaining to bingo under the amendment approved years back. It did so with the guidance of several attorneys and with input from the attorney general’s office. The developers and county commissioners acted in good faith and did what they believed was necessary to comply with the law.

The actual machines in use at Country Crossing are identical to electric bingo machines used on Indian land; those machines survived lengthy challenges that sought to determine that they were not Class 2 devices, which would be allowed in the state because of the existence of parimutuel betting at dog tracks in the state, or Class 3 devices, such as casino-type slot machines, which are prohibited.

The Eagle’s editorial board believes that the devices in use at Country Crossing are legal under existing law and that the facility should be allowed to operate without fear of armed raids based on questionable authority. It’s not a matter of what members of the editorial board think of gambling, it’s how the members interpret the law.

There is a measure of truth to the belief that tax revenue from a gambling operation is a panacea for governmental economic woes. A look at Macon County, which over time has grown almost exclusively reliant on the taxation and largesse of VictoryLand for its revenue stream, confirms this notion.

It is, indeed, a slippery slope. It’s also a debate better held in the future.

***

Our concern today is that a development built with an investment of more than $80 million, employing more than 1,000 workers and abiding by the regulations and laws of the land now sits idle because Bob Riley suddenly decided, after all these years, that electronic bingo is an illegal enterprise, and, under murky and questionable legal authority, has spent untold amounts of public funds to shutter these legal businesses.

Meanwhile, electronic bingo thrives at Greenetrack in Eutaw, operating around the clock every day of the week, without threat of raid from the governor’s task force.

That underscores our point. There’s simply no rhyme or reason to the governor’s campaign. It appears to be less an issue of gambling than a matter of control.

The Dothan Eagle defends a legal business that employed more than 1,000 people and brought revenue to public coffers.

Whether that sort of business should be legal is a whole different argument.