The Alabama Supreme Court delivered a ruling that affirmed that the 1901 Constitution of Alabama made gambling illegal and that illegal gambling machines are not bingo machines but rather illegal gambling machines. The Court had already ruled on this in previous decisions, but Friday’s ruling went even further. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall released a statement declaring that the decision means that Victoryland, Southern Star, and White Hall Casinos are illegal and should immediately cease their illegal gambling operations. If the casinos comply with the order, they should close before the end of this month.
The Alabama Supreme Court unanimously agreed with Marshall that the three casinos were illegal gambling enterprises and granted the State of Alabama’s request to prohibit the casinos from offering so-called “electronic bingo.” The Alabama Constitution has been amended to allow charities to operate “bingo” halls. The casinos have been operating for years on the legally dubious assertion that an illegal electronic gambling video machine was a bingo machine because they said so.
The Court has previously ruled that bingo is a game played on paper cards, and there is no such thing as “electronic bingo” under Alabama law. Friday’s ruling reaffirms the Court’s previous rulings to that effect, surprising almost no one.
“The Alabama Supreme Court’s opinion makes clear what my office has maintained from the start: these gambling enterprises are not only patently illegal under Alabama law, but also a menace to public health, morals, safety, and welfare,” said AG Marshall in a statement. “Today’s decision will forbid the Southern Star, White Hall, and Victoryland casinos from offering their slot-machine gambling to the public.
“In the five years since I filed lawsuits to cease illegal gambling in five different counties across the state, I have prevailed in court against one deep-pocketed gambling enterprise after another: in 2017, against the River City Casino in Morgan County; in 2018, against the Center Stage casino in Houston County; and, today, against the Southern Star and White Hall casinos in Lowndes County and the Victoryland casino in Macon County,” Marshall continued.
This is the attorney general’s second major gambling-related court victory in the past three months. In June, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in favor of the AG in the case of Alabama Department of Revenue v. Greenetrack, Inc., ordering Greenetrack to pay $76 million in unpaid taxes and interest owed to the Alabama Department of Revenue for profits the casino reaped from illegal gaming. The AG’s separate lawsuit to cease unlawful gambling at the Greenetrack casino in Greene County continues to be adjudicated in court.
The Macon Circuit Court and Lowndes Circuit Court had both denied the State’s requests for injunctive relief seeking to abate, as a public nuisance, the illegal gambling operations there. Those decisions were appealed by the AG’s office leading to Friday’s ruling.
According to investigators, “the Macon County facility contained, during the surveillance operations, several hundred machines that both “looked like a standard slot machine” and “played[] like[] a slot machine with a five by five grid and balls that dropped to simulate … what would be a person calling a number.”
The agents estimated that the grid that recorded the numbers, i.e., the simulated “bingo” card, was approximately the size of a postage stamp while the spinning reels were the predominant display on the machines’ screens. The agents further testified that they detected no correlation between the grid and the reels and that they were not required to record numbers on the grid — or on a corresponding physical bingo card — or determine that the numbers on the grid matched those in the ball drop. Instead, they indicated that the machines could be played without the need to pay.
The court ruled, “In sum, because the State established the existence of ongoing illegal gambling operations and a corresponding inability to compel the defendant’s compliance with the law in the absence of injunctive relief, we find that the State did, contrary to the arguments of the defendants in each case and the findings of the trial courts, demonstrate that it would be irreparably harmed in the absence of the relief requested in each case. The defendants have no right to engage in, and, thus, cannot be harmed by being enjoined from continuing in, an illegal enterprise.”
“The State successfully demonstrated that the operations of the Macon County defendants and the Lowndes County defendants are a public nuisance under Try-Me Bottling. Because the Macon Circuit Court exceeded its discretion in failing to grant, in full, the State’s request for preliminary injunctive relief, and because the Lowndes Circuit Court exceeded its discretion in denying the State permanent injunctive relief, the orders of those courts are hereby reversed and the matters are remanded.”
“We reverse their orders and remand these cases for the Macon Circuit Court to enter an order, within thirty days of this Court’s issuance of the certificate of judgment, preliminarily enjoining the Macon County defendants, and for the Lowndes Circuit Court to enter an order, within thirty days of this Court’s issuance of the certificate of judgment, permanently enjoining the Lowndes County defendants, from offering “electronic bingo” machines at any facility in their respective county, from receiving any moneys in relation to “electronic bingo” machines in operation in their respective county, from transporting or providing any additional “electronic bingo” machines to any facility in their respective county, and from receiving, utilizing, or providing bingo licenses or permits to play “electronic bingo” in their respective county. Further proceedings in the Macon Circuit Court on the State’s request for a permanent injunction shall be consistent with this opinion.”
For the last several years, the illegal gambling interests have lobbied the State Legislature, asking that their operations be made legal after the fact. Those bills, which always include a lottery, have passed the Senate a number of times; but have consistently failed in the Alabama House of Representatives, where legislators were reluctant to give protected gambling monopoly territorial licenses to entities that have operated illegally in the state for years.
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey has said that her greatest regret from her first term was the inability of the Legislature to pass comprehensive gambling legislation. Any legislation to legalize the casinos would have to be passed by the Legislature and then put on a ballot as a constitutional amendment. The earliest that could happen would be 2024, outside of a special election.
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