The new attorney general of Alabama said on Tuesday that he is planning to go on with the strict casino regulation enforcements in the state which have led to the closing down of many gambling halls that were privately owned and had reopened a couple of weeks ago. However, he did not confirm whether the last hall which remains in Greenetrack, located in western Alabama, is the next of his targets or not.
The Sheriff of Jefferson County, Mike Hale, was helped by the Attorney General Luther Strange’s staff when raiding the Anchor Club in Brighton which had been reopened recently and seized 500 gambling machines and slots of the facility on the grounds of them being illegal. The raid also led to the shutting down of two of the other gambling halls that reopened some time back in Jefferson County.
Since these facilities have closed down indefinitely, Greenetrack in Eutaw remains the only location in the state that is still advertising the electronic game bingo. The Poarch Creek Indians’ three casinos is another casino to have escaped this flurry of events but it doesn’t come under the control of the state and remains safe for the time being. In an interview on Tuesday, Strange said that the state was going to enforce the law strictly and actions will be taken wherever such illegal casino operations are found. On being asked about Greenetrack, Strange pointed at every situation being different and thus it wasn’t possible for him to comment on a specific part of the state.
Last year, due to the rulings of the court and pressure from the gambling task force of the former Governor Bob Riley, more than 30 electronic bingo operations closed down including Greenetrack in Greene County and several of them belonging to the Jefferson County. The government had closed them down on the account of their games (slot machines) being illegal. After this action, only the Indians’ electronic bingo casinos in Wetumpka, Montgomery and Atmore were left in operation. The gambling hall of Greenetrack was reopened on the 18th of March with 100 machines which looked like computer monitors and were branded legal electronic bingo by the casino. Soon after, it was followed by the Magic City Bingo, Anchor Club and Midfeild Bingo in Jefferson City.
