This week, a trial will begin in the state of Alabama over a raid that shut down a popular commercial casino in the winter of 2013.
VictoryLand casino was raided in Feb. 2013. According to the Associated Press, the trial will determine whether the state can destroy the 1,615 gambling machines, which the state says are illegal, seized in the raid, as well as keep the $223,405 in cash that was confiscated.
Basically, the state thinks the machines amounted to slots, while the casino says it was a legal business because the machines offered bingo, a game that’s legal in Alabama.
From the AP:
No matter how [Montgomery County Circuit Judge William Shashy] rules, the case could end up getting appealed to the state Supreme Court. Alabama’s highest court indicated how it felt about the machines when it ordered [Circuit Judge Tom Young] to approve a search warrant for the raid. The justices said that based on undercover surveillance video and an affidavit from an investigator, “‘a man of reasonable caution could reach no conclusion other than that there is a ‘fair probability’ that the machines in question are not the games of bingo and, instead, are slot machines or other gambling devices that are illegal under Alabama law.”
