VictoryLand Casino in Montgomery, Alabama reopened to large crowds on September 13. At the time the casino did not appear to be threatened with any legal action. In fact, owner Milton McGregor said the sheriff and district attorney assured him the casino’s electronic bingo games were legal. However, Governor Robert Bentley and state Attorney General Luther Strange recently ordered local law enforcement to shut down VictoryLand–again.
The governor and attorney general sent letters on September 20 to the sheriff and district attorney in Macon and Lowndes counties asking them to stop “the continued operation of the illegal electronic bingo” at VictoryLand in Macon County and at White Hall and Southern Star casinos in Lowndes county. “This is a violation of state law. Electronic bingo has clearly been disallowed by Alabama case law as a form of lottery prohibited under Alabama’s Constitution,” they wrote. Strange and Bentley asked the local law enforcement officials to provide a written description of their enforcement plans by September 30. Attorney James Anderson, representing Macon County Sheriff Andre Brunson, said, “Any court order the sheriff gets, he is going to obey,” despite what he told McGregor.
Strange’s office conducted a raid at VictoryLand in 2013, seizing 1,615 gambling machines and $260,000 in cash. The casino remained closed after that until its recent reopening. The Alabama Supreme Court in March ruled the electronic bingo games were illegal and determined in previous cases state bingo laws authorized card and paper type bingo games as charity fundraisers, not the slot-like machines.
