Riley and King Hunt Alabama's Gaming Machines

Governor Bob Riley and Attorney General Troy King are making a serious push to rid Alabama’s dog tracks of electronic gaming machines.  As a matter of fact, they are going as far as to request a constitutional amendment to ban the machines that many feel too closely resemble Las Vegas style casino games.

If they achieve their objective, Birmingham would lose their recently established electronic sweepstakes games.  Greene and Macon County dog tracks will have to give up electronic bingo machines for traditional, paper-card bingo.

Governor Riley and Attorney General King have placed heated accusations on dog track owners.  By creating rooms full of machines for people to play bingo and or promotional sweepstakes games, according to Riley and King, owners are finding creative ways to blatantly exploit loopholes in state law.

Riley’s opinion is “If it looks like a slot machine and sounds like a slot machine, ladies and gentlemen, to me, it is a slot machine.”  Riley and King made their proposal known to the public during Tuesday’s press conference at the Alabama Capitol.

The road to achieving a constitutional amendment is a tricky one in Alabama.  The bill must first score a three-fifth majority vote from every elected lawmaker in the state, and then voters must either accept it or reject it on the ballot.  Riley and King have only discussed their intentions, an actual bill has yet to be proposed, but that is enough to ruffle the feathers of some members in the Legislative body that support the legalized games.

“The tracks will be out of business if Riley’s proposal passes,” protests Milton McGregor, owner of Birmingham and Macon County tracks.  “Myself and other companies have collectively spent millions of dollars in Birmingham.  Now, after we get our investment made, Governor Riley wants to change the law.  That’s obviously wrong and ridiculous,” said McGregor as he furthered defended his stance as an owner.

Meanwhile, King has suffered his own set of criticisms for not taking a stand against McGregor’s activities in Birmingham.  King’s point of view is that when tracks are allowed to set up machines too closely resembling casino games, because technology has outpaced current law, the only solution is changing the law.

Earlier this month, a judge in Jefferson County held a similar sentiment to that of Riley and King.  Though admitting that the video sweepstakes McGregor premiered this past December at the Birmingham Race Course is legal, he also considered it a crafty scheme aimed specifically at abusing loopholes in the states anti-gambling and anti-lottery laws.

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