Opponents Claim Slot Machine Victory

With the ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court that video sweepstakes games are the same as slot machines, many who operate those games are concerned about jobs and their now defunct income. However, those that didn’t want the slot machines to come into the state in the first place are excited by the ruling that they are in fact slot machines. This ruling overturns an earlier ruling by the Jefferson Country Circuit Court who said that they were not slot machines.

John Giles, President of Christian Action Alabama, was heartened by the ruling that they were slot machines. “We maintained from day one the sweepstakes gambling operations were unconstitutional and illegal,” Giles said.

The Birmingham Race Course tried to get three of the judged recused from the proceedings as they argued that the justices has all campaigned as being anti gambling and anti slot machine. They refused stating that their “personal opinions did not influence their decisions as justices of the court.” It does not seem to matter however, as the slot machines were voted against 8-0, which means that even if those three judges had chosen not to vote on the slot machine issue, it still would have been 5-0.

Governor Bob Riley had asked the Supreme Court in a brief he filed before the ruling, that he urged them to find the slot machines illegal. “These so-called sweepstakes machines are nothing more than dressed-up slot machines,” Riley said Friday. “It is time we rid Alabama of these illegal [slot machine] gambling operations, and I’m very pleased the Supreme Court agrees.”

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