Saturday, April 07, 2007

A House committee approved a bill Wednesday that would legalize high stakes
electronic bingo games at greyhound dog tracks in Birmingham and Mobile. The
bill, by Rep. Marcel Black, D-Tuscumbia, provides for 20 percent of gross
revenue from the bingo games to be taxed with tax revenue helping to fund
Alabama's Medicaid program. The bill would also outlaw other types of
electronic gaming machines, which Black said would stop the spread of the
games across the state.
"There's not going to be gambling at every little convenience store at every
crossroads in the state," Black said. The House Tourism and Travel Committee
approved the bill by voice vote. It now goes to the full House for debate.
The bill is a constitutional amendment and would have to be approved in a
statewide referendum if passed by the Legislature. Speaking in favor of the
bill at Wednesday's meeting was Randy Brinson, chairman of the Alabama
Christian Coalition. Brinson said he and his group are opposed to gambling,
but said he believes Black's bill would confine the games to the greyhound
tracks, where gambling is already legal. The electronic bingo games are
legal at greyhound tracks in Macon and Greene counties. "We've got to
confine gambling to where it is right now," Brinson said. Brinson became
chairman of the Alabama Christian Coalition last year after the
organization's previous leaders broke away and formed a separate group,
Christian Action of Alabama. But the Rev. Dan Ireland, the director of the
Alabama Citizens Action Program and an outspoken opponent of gambling, said
the bill would expand gambling, by making the games legal at the two tracks.
He said the games would hurt Alabama families. "There's going to be a lot of
losers before you pay out a prize to anybody," Ireland said. Officials from
the two tracks told committee members that business has been hurt by
lotteries in Georgia, Tennessee and Florida and by casinos in Mississippi.
Lori Meadows, representing the Mobile Greyhound Park, said the number of
employees at the track has been cut in half in recent years as former
customers chose to instead go to casinos in nearby Biloxi, Miss. She told
committee members that defeating the bill would not stop gambling in
Alabama.