In Alabama, 14 bingo halls in Jefferson County were shut down by the office of Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, along with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, FBI and DEA agents and Hoover police.
Marshall said his office obtained temporary restraining orders against the illegal gambling facilities, which offered a combined total of more than 2,400 illegal slot machines.
At a press conference, Marshall said, “These facilities were operating in blatant disregard in violation of state law and apparently without any fear of reprisal. If you drive around where these facilities are located, you’ll notice that while these facilities are raking in tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash every month, they are not lifting these communities up. Nobody’s property values have increased as a result of these facilities. The economies in these areas have not improved. No neighborhood has flourished as a result of the presence of these so-called casinos.”
Marshall added, “Gambling is illegal in Alabama as the Supreme Court has recently affirmed. Allowing the illegal gambling to operate freely in broad daylight is offensive to the rule of law and we simply aren’t going to tolerate it.”
The latest shutdowns are not the first time Marshall has gone after illegal gambling. In 2019, he took legal action against four of the 14 recently shuttered gambling facilities, including illegal gambling operations in Macon and Lowndes counties. He obtained judgment against Greenetrack in Greene County, leading to the state receiving a final judgment for $76 million in unpaid taxes.
Marshall said, “I’m familiar with the chatter and the narrative that arrives anytime that my office cracks down on illegal gambling. People say that gambling isn’t hurting anybody or that somehow there are other real problems for us to solve. Y’all, we don’t get to pick and choose the laws in which we enforce. And certainly, you prioritize your resources but you cannot just ignore rampant gambling that’s going on across your county.”
No arrests have been made but Marshall said the investigation is ongoing. “The chairman of the county commission asked for our office’s resources as well as various legislators and numerous citizens and so we are here. There will be more to come as we examine all of the evidence collected. Laws are laws,” Marshall stated.
