VictoryLand Casino in Macon County, Alabama will reopen at 2:00 p.m., Tuesday, September 13 and offer electronic bingo, said owner Milton McGregor in a joint announcement with Tuskegee Mayor Johnny Ford. The casino has been closed since the law enforcement officials led by state Attorney General Luther Strange’s office seized 1,615 machines and 3,000 in a 2013 raid.
McGregor said, “We have been working with Mayor Johnny Ford, our outstanding sheriff and district attorney, and many others for months to get the doors to VictoryLand back open. While it has taken longer than we hoped, the time is now here and we are pleased that hundreds of our people will have a new job and VictoryLand will be generating a badly needed shot in the arm for Tuskegee and this entire region of Alabama.”
The casino will provide more than 200 new jobs upon opening, and add several hundred more over time, McGregor said. “Two hundred jobs is an awful lot for a place like Macon County and Tuskegee,” Ford said. He added elected officials need to show a united front to keep the casino open. “It means that if you keep fighting and stand up for what is right, eventually, right will prevail,” he said.
Macon County Sheriff Andre Brunson and District Attorney E. Paul Jones had the electronic bingo machines examined by independent experts who determined that the machines comply with “all regulations and all other guidelines,” according to a news release. VictoryLand will compete with Poarch Indian casinos in the area.
Last year the Alabama Supreme Court overturned a trial court ruling that had supported VictoryLand. The high court sided with Strange’s office, ruling that the state could keep and destroy the machines seized in the raid since they did not meet the court’s legal definition of bingo. Despite that ruling, McGregor vowed to reopen VictoryLand.
Also in 2015, Governor Robert Bentley issued an executive order stating sheriffs and district attorneys had the primary responsibility for enforcing criminal laws according to their interpretations, and that Strange’s office would no longer lead enforcement of gambling laws.
Strange’s spokesman Mike Lewis said the attorney general had no comment about the reopening of VictoryLand.
